Net Element's PayOnline Continues Expansion Into Central Asia

MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Sep 1, 2016) -  Net Element, Inc. (NASDAQ: NETE) ("Net Element" or the "Company"), a provider of global mobile payment technology solutions and value-added transactional services, today announced its subsidiary PayOnline has opened an office in Kazakhstan. The decision to establish a local Kazakhstan office comes on the heels of the Company's successful organic growth in Central Asia. In addition to the new Kazakhstan office, earlier this year, PayOnline opened a sales office in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

With the growing volume of cashless transactions in Central Asia, PayOnline made a strategic decision to launch a dedicated office in Kazakhstan, the largest country in the region. The newly opened office located in Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty, began operations in August.

PayOnline's state-of-the-art payment technologies, which are currently used by over 3,000 online enterprises across CIS countries, Europe and Asia, have proven to be in high demand in the growing, young market of Central Asia.

In 2015, the volume of electronic commerce market in Kazakhstan exceeded $11 billion and is expected to grow exponentially during 2016. Such high growth rates are expected to continue in the coming years, taking into account that electronic commerce only accounts for approximately 1% of total commerce in Kazakhstan, this represents an incredible opportunity for growth in the region.

One of the first anchor projects for the Company in Central Asia was to enable payment acceptance for participation in Muz-TV "Gravity Awards", which was held in June 2015 in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. Today, PayOnline cooperates with more than 180 online merchants in Central Asia that are currently in various stages of deployment and technical integration.

The high demand of PayOnline's integrated services in Central Asia is due in part to the Company fully supporting the needs of Kazakhstan clients and facilitating processing in the major currencies of that region such as KZT - Kazakhstani Tenge; KGZ - Kyrgyzstani Som and TJS - Tajikistani Somoni. These services and functionalities were added to the PayOnline platform in collaboration and integration with Kazkommertsbank, the largest bank in Kazakhstan and Central Asia ("KAZKOM") and to support payment technologies for electronic commerce enterprises in various spheres of activities, which include retail, tourism and mobile commerce. The market is also important for the global merchants who have this region on their roadmap for expansion.