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NewsBriefs

This article contains excerpts from news stories recently posted under
Breaking Industry News on our homepage. For links to these and
other full news stories, please visit www.greensheet.com/breaking-
news.php.

Post pandemic, NEAA lights up Philadelphia
After a one-year hiatus due to COVID-related
restrictions, the annual on-site Northeast Acquirers
Association conference took place in April 2022 at
the Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown. The packed
exhibit hall and conference agenda reflected the
trade association's heritage of serving and educating
payments professionals since 1985. Tom Falcone,
national sales director, ISO sales and global business
solutions at Fiserv, observed a renewed sense of purpose
and energy among attendees, exhibitors and sponsors.

Falcone additionally noted that attendees were eager
to network, observe on-site demos and catch up on
emerging trends throughout the two-day event,
which began with a panel discussion on the payments
landscape and opportunities, which was moderated by
Don Apgar, director, merchant services and acquiring
practice at Mercator Advisory Group. Panelists included
Amy Crawford from Liquid Payments; David Young
at ACI Worldwide; and Aliaswire's Eugene DeSilva.
The discussion highlighted three top opportunities in
digital commerce: embedded payments; buy now, pay
later (BNPL); and cryptocurrencies.
Mastercard advances BNPL strategy

Mastercard recently expanded Mastercard Installments,
the BNPL product introduced in 2021. Mastercard
added eight new partners to the program, including
merchants, banks and bank technology partners.
The eight are Amount, a digital banking technology
provider; Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's; credit-card-as-
a-service provider Deserve; H&R Block; banking and
payments platform I2c; financial technology startup
Lithic; Saks Fifth Avenue; Ohio-based Sutton Bank; and
Walgreens.

Linda Kirkpatrick, president of North America at
Mastercard, said the company's diverse new partners
represent "the versatility and agility of our BNPL
program." Mastercard Installments lets consumers
digitally access BNPL offers, either pre-approved

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