MULLEN AUTOMOTIVE INC. - Annual Report: 2016 (Form 10-K)

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

(Mark One)

x ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016

OR

¨ TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the transition period from __________ to __________

Commission file number: 001-34887

Net Element, Inc.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code: (305) 507-8808

Securities registered under Section 12(b) of the Exchange Act:

Securities registered under Section 12(g) of the Exchange Act:

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. ¨ YES      x NO

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. ¨ YES     x NO

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. x YES     ¨    NO

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files). x YES ¨ NO

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K (§ 229.405 of this chapter) is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K. ¨

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or a smaller reporting company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer” and “smaller reporting company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act. (Check one):

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act). ¨ YES      x NO

The aggregate market value of the registrant’s common equity, other than shares held by persons who may be deemed affiliates of the registrant, as of June 30, 2016 was approximately $25,367,813 (based upon the reported closing price of $1.84 per share on June 30, 2016).

The registrant had 17,681,792 shares of common stock outstanding as of March 30, 2017.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

None.

Forward-Looking Statements

This Annual Report on Form 10-K (this “Report”), including the sections entitled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Conditions and Results of Operation” and “Risk Factors”, contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. You should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. The events and circumstances reflected in the forward-looking statements may not be achieved or occur. All statements other than statements of historical fact, including, statements regarding our future results of operations and financial position, our business strategy and plans, our objectives for future operations, and any statements of a general economic or industry specific nature, are forward-looking statements. You can identify forward-looking statements by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts. Forward-looking statements generally are identified by the words “expects,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “intends,” “estimates,” “aims,” “plans,” “may,” “will,” “continue,” “seeks,” “should,” “believe,” “potential” or the negative of such terms and similar expressions. We have based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about future events and trends that we believe, based on information currently available to our management, may affect our financial condition, results of operations, business strategy, short-term and long-term business operations and objectives, and financial needs. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including those described in the "Risk Factors" section in Part I, Item 1A of this Report. Moreover, we operate in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment.

If these or other risks and uncertainties (including those described in Part I, Item 1A of this Report and the Company’s subsequent filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC” or the “Commission”)) materialize, or if the assumptions underlying any of these statements prove incorrect, the Company’s actual results may be materially different from those expressed or implied by such statements. We undertake no obligation to publicly revise any forward-looking statement to reflect circumstances or events after the date of this Report to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. You should, however, review the factors and risks described in the reports we file from time-to-time with the SEC after the date of this Report. These factors include, among other factors:

World Wide Web addresses contained in this Report are for explanatory purposes only and they (and the content contained therein) do not form a part of, and are not incorporated by reference into, this Report.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I

Item 1. Business.

Net Element, Inc., (“Net Element”) a Delaware corporation, is a holding company that conducts its operations through its subsidiaries. Net Element and its subsidiaries are referred to collectively as the “Company,” “Net Element,” “we,” “us,” or “our,” unless the context requires otherwise.

Company Overview

Net Element is a global financial technology and value-added solutions group that supports companies in accepting electronic payments in an omni-channel environment that spans across point-of-sale (“POS”), e-commerce and mobile devices. The Company operates in three segments as a provider of North America Transaction Solutions, Mobile Payment Solutions and Online Payment Solutions.

We enable merchants of all sizes to accept and process over 100 different payment options in more than 40 currencies, including credit, debit and prepaid payments. We also provide merchants with value-added services and technologies including integrated payment technologies, POS solutions, security solutions, fraud management, information solutions and analytical tools.

We provide a range of solutions to our clients across the value chain of commerce-enabling services and technologies. We create our value-added solutions from a suite of proprietary technology products which includes cloud-based applications, processing services, security offerings, and customer support programs that we configure to meet our clients’ individual needs.

We provide additional services including:

We have operations and offices located within the United States (“U.S.”) (domestic) and outside of the U.S. (international) where sales, customer service and/or administrative personnel are based. Through U.S. based subsidiaries, we generate revenues from transactional services, valued-added payment services and technologies for SMBs. Through wholly owned subsidiaries, we operate internationally with a focus on transactional services, mobile payment transactions, online payment transactions, value-added payment services and technologies in selected international markets.

Our business is characterized by transaction related fees, multi-year contracts, and a diverse client base which allows us to grow alongside our clients. Our multi-year contracts allow us to achieve a high level of recurring revenues. While the contracts typically do not specify fixed revenues to be realized thereunder, they do provide a framework for revenues to be generated based on volume of services provided during the contract’s term.

Recent Developments 

During 2016, we continued to expand our global transaction services in the United States and select international markets.

Our primary highlights during 2016 were as follows:

New Partnerships:

New Key Client Relationships

Geographical Expansion

Capital

Product Launches

Outlook

For the year 2017, we will continue to focus on strategic partnerships and innovative products that will further expand our services, positioning Net Element as a convenient one-stop solution for payments services to a global merchant community. We also intend to expand our presence in North America through distribution and integrated-services programs. In addition, we intend to further consolidate and centralize our international operational infrastructure and resources.

Our Mission and Vision

Our mission is to power global commerce and allow our clients to conduct business globally. We believe that understanding the consumer behavior and the needs of our merchants is the most effective and, ultimately, the most profitable means to accomplish our mission and create long-term value for all stakeholders.

We drive client growth through our in-depth knowledge of global transactional services and related value-added service offerings which separate us from the competition.

Our vision is to set the standard for omni-channel payments acceptance and value-added service offerings with focus on creation of unified global transaction acceptance ecosystem.

In order to achieve this vision, we seek to further develop single on-boarding, global transaction acceptance ecosystem. Manifesting this vision requires scaling our direct and indirect connectivity to multiple payment and mobile networks internationally. By operationalizing this vision, we believe that we will be able to provide centralized, global omni-channel transactional platform to our clients internationally.

Our Strategy

Our strategy is to power global commerce through a world-wide, omni-channel solutions offering. To continue to grow our business, our strategy is to focus on providing merchants with the ability to process a variety of electronic transactions across multiple channels. We seek to leverage the adoption of and transition to card, electronic and digital-based payments by expanding our market share through our distribution channels and services innovations. We also seek growth through strategic acquisitions to improve our offerings, scale and geography. We intend to continue to invest in and leverage our technology infrastructure and our people to increase our penetration in existing markets.

Key elements of our business strategy include:

With our existing infrastructure and supplier relationships, we believe that we can accommodate expected portfolio growth. We believe that our available capacity and infrastructure will allow us to take advantage of operational efficiencies as we grow our processing volume and expand to other geographical territories.

Market Overview

The financial technology and transaction processing industry is an integral part of today’s worldwide financial structure. The industry is continually evolving, driven in large part by technological advances. The benefits of card-based payments allow merchants to access a broader universe of consumers, enjoy faster settlement times and reduce transaction errors. By using credit or debit cards, consumers are able to make purchases more conveniently, whether in person, over the Internet, or by mail, fax or telephone, while gaining the benefit of loyalty programs, such as frequent flyer miles or cash back, which are increasingly being offered by credit or debit card issuers.

In addition, consumers are also beginning to use card-based and other electronic payment methods for purchases at an earlier age in life, and increasingly for small dollar amount purchases. Given these advantages of card-based payment systems to merchants and consumers, favorable demographic trends, and the resulting proliferation of credit and debit card usage, we believe businesses will increasingly seek to accept card-based payment systems in order to remain competitive.

Our management believes that cash transactions are becoming progressively obsolete. The proliferation of bankcards has made the acceptance of bankcard payments a virtual necessity for many businesses, regardless of size, in order to remain competitive. In addition, the advent and growth of e-commerce have marked a significant new trend in the way business is being conducted. E-commerce is dependent upon credit and debit cards, as well as other cashless payment processing methods.

The payment processing industry continues to evolve rapidly, based on the application of new technology and changing customer needs. We intend to continue to evolve with the market to provide the necessary technological advances to meet the ever-changing needs of our market place. Traditional players in the industry must quickly adapt to the changing environment or be left behind in the competitive landscape.

Business Segments

We operate three reportable business operating segments: (i) North America Transaction Solutions, (ii) Mobile Solutions, and (iii) Online Solutions. Our segments are designed to establish lines of businesses that support our client base with globalized solutions. Management determines the reportable segments based on the internal reporting used by our Chief Operating Decision Maker to evaluate performance and to assess where to allocate resources. The principal revenue stream for all segments came from service and transaction related fees during 2016 and 2015.

Prior to May 20, 2015, we had a single reportable business segment: payment processing for electronic commerce. On May 20, 2015, we obtained financial and operational control of PayOnline, a provider of online payment processing of online transactions in emerging markets. Additionally, we rebranded our mobile payments business to Digital Provider and began reporting gross revenues for mobile payments where we provide access to branded content. Given the size of assets and revenues from PayOnline and Digital Provider, we began reporting segment information for three operating segments during the third quarter of 2015.

Comparative segment revenues and related financial information pertaining to our segments for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 are presented in the tables in Note 17, Segment Information, to our consolidated financial statements (the “Consolidated Financial Statements”), which are included elsewhere in this Report.

North America Transaction Solutions Segment

The following table presents North America Transaction Solutions segment information as a percentage of total revenue:

North America Transaction Solutions Operations. Our largest segment, North America Transaction Solutions, where through our subsidiary TOT Payments, LLC, doing business as Unified Payments, provides businesses of all sizes and types with a wide range of solutions at the point of sale, including Merchant Acquiring, e-commerce, mobile commerce, mPOS and other business solutions. Our largest service in this segment is Merchant Acquiring, which facilitates the acceptance of cashless transactions at the POS, whether a retail transaction at a physical business location, a mobile commerce transaction through a mobile or tablet device, which includes m-POS acceptance, Android Pay™, Apple Pay™ and Samsung Pay or an electronic commerce transaction over the web. Geographical presence for this segment is North America.

Our North America Transaction Solutions segment revenues are primarily derived from processing credit and debit card transactions for SMB merchants and includes fees for providing processing, loyalty and software services, and sales and leases of POS devices. Revenues are generated from a variety of sources, including:

For example, in a transaction using a Visa or MasterCard card, the allocation of funds resulting from a $100 transaction follows.

* Does not include agent commission payments.

We typically provide our services as part of a broader payment acceptance solution to our business clients across multiple channels, including:

North America Transaction Solutions Marketing. We employ a variety of go-to-market strategies in our North America Transaction Solutions segment. We mostly partner with indirect non-bank sales forces (“Sales Partners”), such as independent sales agents, independent sales groups (“ISG”), independent software vendors (“ISV”), value added resellers (“VAR”), and payment services providers (“PSP”) to sell our payment solutions to SMB merchants. We believe that this sales approach provides us with access to an experienced sales force to market our services with limited investment in sales infrastructure and management time. We believe our focus on the unique needs of SMB allows us to develop compelling offerings for our sales channels to bring to prospective merchants and provides us with a competitive advantage in our target market.

Sales & Marketing Support – Among the services and capabilities, we provide are rapid application response time, merchant application acceptance by fax or online submission, superior customer service, merchant reporting and robust analytics. In addition, by controlling the underwriting process we believe we offer the ISGs more rapid and consistent review of merchant applications than may be available from other service providers. Additionally, in certain circumstances, we offer our sales organizations tailored compensation programs and unique technology applications to assist them in the sales process. We keep an open dialogue with our sales partners to address their concerns as quickly as possible and work with them in investigating chargebacks or potentially suspicious activity with the aim of ensuring our merchants do not unduly suffer downtime or the unnecessary withholding of funds.

Sales & Marketing Compensation – As compensation for their referral of merchant accounts, we pay our Sales Partners an agreed-upon recurring commission, or percentage of the income we derive from the transactions we process from the merchants they refer to us. The amount of the recurring commissions we pay to our Sales Partners varies on a case-by-case basis and depends on several factors, including but not limited to the number and type of merchants each group refers to us. We provide additional incentives to our Sales Partners, including from time to time, advances and merchant acquisition bonuses that are secured by income earned from the referred merchant and repayable from future compensation that may be earned by the groups in respect to the merchants they have referred to us. For the year ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, we provided merchant acquisition incentives to Sales Partners in an aggregate amount of $1.3 million and $0.87 million, respectively. Our organic growth plan calls for future incentives to be funded to our Sales Partners for referred merchants.

North America Transaction Solutions. Our solutions are designed to help SMB merchants accept cashless payments in an omni-channel payment environment, which spans across POS, e-commerce and mobile devices.

Aptito POS Platform – We acquired Aptito, an integrated POS platform developed on Apple’s® iOS mobile operating system for the hospitality industry, in June 2013 and invested in the technology to significantly enhance and expand its capabilities and features. Our goal with Aptito is to create an easy to use POS and business management solution, which incorporates everything a small business needs to help streamline every-day management, operations and payment acceptance. We have expanded the family of Aptito products to include Aptito Hospitality POS, Aptito Retail POS, Restoactive and Unified m-POS.

In addition to enhancing our ability to drive core merchant acquiring sales, Aptito allows us to earn incremental revenue from business clients. Currently, the Aptito revenue model is based on a SaaS fee, which we bill on a per station basis and additional services fee, which we bill for additional applications we offer.

We also believe Aptito can help enhance client retention because we believe it will become core to our client’s businesses and position us as a value-added partner. For example, business owners may use Aptito business management tools to manage their employees’ work schedules, payroll, patron reservations, operate customer loyalty programs, manage inventory, and provide analytics on their business.

Other POS Platforms – We act as an authorized dealer for various POS manufacturers and POS software providers and deploy these systems where our proprietary products are not the best fit. Systems we offer are fully integrated with our payment acceptance capabilities.

Merchant Management Platform – We have developed Sales Central, a proprietary cloud-based management platform for merchants and sales partners (ISG’s) designed to enhance responsiveness of our sales partners and improve sales efficiency. The cloud-based solution provides Sales Partners and merchants an integrated toolkit to more effectively manage a variety of sales, operations, reporting and accounting functions. The system is designed to improve conversion rates, technology advisory functions and to reduce deployment time for merchants. It also allows troubleshooting of merchant issues in real-time. Sales Central is currently one of the few cloud-based systems nationwide that allows Sales Partners to onboard and monitor merchants on multiple processing platforms through a single interface.

North America Transaction Solutions Competition. Many large and small companies compete with us in providing payment processing services and related services to a wide range of merchants. Many of our current and prospective competitors have substantially greater financial, technical and marketing resources, larger customer bases, longer operating histories, more developed infrastructures, greater name recognition and/or more established relationships in the industry than we have. Because of this our competitors may be able to adopt more aggressive pricing policies than we can, develop and expand their service offerings more rapidly, adapt to new or emerging technologies and changes in customer requirements more quickly, take advantage of acquisitions and other opportunities more readily, achieve greater economies of scale, and devote greater resources to the marketing and sale of their services. There are also many smaller transaction processors that provide various services to small and medium sized merchants.

We believe that our specific focus on smaller merchants, in addition to our understanding of the needs and risks associated with providing payment processing services to small merchants and indirect non-bank sales forces, gives us a competitive advantage over larger competitors, which have a broader market perspective and priorities. We also believe that we have a competitive advantage over competitors of a similar or smaller size that may lack our extensive experience, value-added product offering and resources.

North America Transaction Solutions Industry Mix and Geography. In the United States, we have developed significant expertise in industries that we believe present relatively low risks as the customers are generally present and the products or services are generally delivered at the time the transaction is processed. These include:

Merchants we served during 2016 processed an average of $11,804 each month in credit card transactions and had an average transaction value of $56.19 per transaction. Larger payment processors have traditionally underserved these merchants. As a result, these merchants have historically paid higher transaction fees than larger merchants and have not been provided with tailored solutions and on-going services that larger merchants typically receive from larger payment processing providers. 

Out total North America Transaction Solutions processing volume for the year ended December 31, 2016 was $1.6 billion, a 60% increase over processing during the year ended December 31, 2015. Transactions processed for the year ended December 31, 2016 were 87.5 million, a 70% increase from transactions processed during the year ended December 31, 2015.

Our card-present processing volume for the year ended December 31, 2016 represented 73% of the total North America Transaction Solution volume, and card-not-present processing volume represented 27%.

As of December 31, 2016, approximately 36.6% of our SMB merchants were restaurants and 19.9% were health and beauty services, and 15.3% were general merchandise. The high concentration in restaurants reflects the efforts of our sales team actively targeting our Aptito product line. The following table reflects the percentage concentration of our merchant base by category:

In December 2016, SMB merchants located in the following states represented the following percentage of our SMB card processing volume: New York represented 22.7%, New Jersey represented 22.2%, California represented 10.4%, Pennsylvania represented 7.5%, and Florida represented 5.6%. No other state represented more than 3.6% of our total SMB card processing volume. Our geographic concentration tends to reflect states where we maintain stronger sales force. We believe that the loss of any single SMB merchant would not have a material adverse effect on our financial condition or results of operations.

North America Transaction Solutions Risk Management. In the United States, we focus our sales efforts on both low and higher risk bankcard merchants. We have developed systems and procedures designed to minimize our exposure to potential merchant losses.

Effective risk management helps us minimize merchant losses for the mutual benefit of our merchants, Independent Sales Groups and ourselves. Our Underwriting and Risk Management Policy and procedures help to protect us from fraud perpetrated by our merchants. We believe our knowledge and experience in dealing with attempted fraud has resulted in our development and implementation of effective risk management and fraud prevention systems and procedures. In 2016, we experienced net losses of .008% of our SMB card processing dollar volume.

We employ the following systems and procedures to minimize our exposure to merchant and transaction fraud:

North America Transaction Solutions Sponsoring Banks and Data Processors. Because we are not a “member bank” as defined by Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover (“Card Associations”), in order to authorize and settle payment transactions for merchants, we must be sponsored by a financial institution that holds member bank status with Card Association (“Sponsorship Bank”) and various third-party vendors (“Data Processors”) to assist us with these functions. Card Association rules restrict us from performing funds settlement or accessing merchant settlement funds and require that these funds be in the possession of a Sponsorship Bank until the merchant is funded.

Sponsoring Bank. We have agreements with several banks that sponsor us for membership in the Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover card associations and settle card transactions for our merchants. These agreements allow us to use the banks’ identification numbers, referred to as Bank Identification Number (“BIN”) for Visa transactions and Interbank Card Association (“ICA”) number for MasterCard transactions. The principal Sponsoring Bank through which we processed the majority of our transaction in the United States during 2016 was BMO Harris Bank, N.A. On November 1, 2016, we moved all of our processing from BMO Harris Bank, N.A. to Merrick Bank, N.A. In addition, in February 2016, we entered into a BIN sponsorship agreement with Esquire Bank, N.A. As a result of our settlement with First Data, in 2016, we entered into a sponsoring agreement with Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. From time to time, we may enter into agreements with additional banks.

Data Processor. We have agreements with several Data Processors to provide us with, on a non-exclusive basis, transaction processing and transmittal, transaction authorization and data capture, and access to various reporting tools. Our primary processing vendor in the United States is Priority Payment Systems, LLC (“Priority”), which provides us with the processing conduit to the Total System Services, Inc. (“TSYS”) and First Data Corporation (“FDC”) authorization and settlement network. We have entered into several service agreements with Priority. Each of the Priority service agreements may be terminated by Priority if, among other things, (i) certain insolvency events occur with respect to us or (ii) we fail to maintain our good standing with Card Associations. We may terminate each of the agreements if, among other things, (i) certain insolvency events occur with respect to Priority, (ii) Priority materially breaches any of the terms, covenants or conditions of the agreements and fails to cure such breach within 30 days following receipt of written notice thereof, or (iii) under certain circumstances, Priority is unable to perform services described in the agreement. In addition, we maintain direct processing agreements with TSYS and FDC.

As an example of processing an electronic payment, the below diagram illustrates the participants involved in a payment transaction. There are four main participants, the Merchant, the Service Provider (Unified Payments), the Sponsoring Bank and the Data Processor. Merchants are primarily business owners that accept credit card payment in exchange for their merchandise and services.

Mobile Solutions Segment

The following table presents Mobile Solutions segment revenue as a percentage of total revenue:

Mobile Solutions Operations. In international markets (especially the Russian Federation and the CIS), we hold leadership position through our subsidiary, Digital Provider, where we enable Direct Carrier Billing utilizing billing infrastructure between Mobile Network Operators (“MNOs”) and content providers to facilitate content monetization. In the Russian Federation and CIS through agreements and integrations with marketing companies owned by the top 4 MNOs including Mobile TeleSystem (MTS), MegaFon, VimpelCom and TELE2, we enable mobile payments acceptance for networks that serve a combined 390 million mobile users. 

During 2016, we had a monthly average of over 1.1 million consumers which we billed on a monthly basis. Our total Mobile Solutions transactions processed for the year ended December 31, 2016 was 73.3 million, a 19% decrease from transactions processed during the year ended December 31, 2015. Decrease in transactions processed was a result of shifted business model from one-time transactional business to subscription / recurring revenue model.

Our Carrier Billing Solution is positioned in the center of the mobile commerce for digital goods and services with billing checkout and offers various mobile payment solutions for web services and mobile applications. We enable monetization for digital content providers through smartphones, feature phones or web without a credit card or a bank account. Utilizing the source of funds that MNOs have already integrated into every mobile phone (a monthly bill for post-paid phones and stored credit for prepaid phones), merchants won’t need to collect any customer credit card or bank information to complete their sale. Our mobile campaign tools allow for the delivery of scalable mobile campaigns on behalf of our content partners.

Digital Provider’s current customers span across variety of industries and operate across different markets. Our clients include mobile operator designated companies, merchants, content and service providers. Our platform is used by over a thousand merchants.

Our Mobile Solutions segment revenues are primarily derived from processing of a mobile transactions for digital merchants, such as: social networks, game developers, online magazines, mobile applications and other digital media operators to monetize their content in a mobile environment and includes fees for providing processing, content management and distribution, and software services. In addition, in 2016, we began offering mobile users our Digital Provider branded content, which we acquire from multiple content providers. Revenues are generated from a variety of sources, including:

For example, in a transaction using a mobile device as a form of payment, the allocation of funds resulting from a $10 transaction from our branded content follows.

Mobile Solutions Marketing. We employ a variety of go-to-market strategies in our Mobile Solutions segment. We mostly partner with mobile operators, broadcast media networks, internet portals and content providers, and marketing and sales promotion partners.

Other industries using mobile messaging and mobile billing solutions include banking, retailing, brokering, tourism, transportation, games, and education.

Mobile Solutions. Our solutions are designed to help digital merchants accept mobile payments transactions utilizing direct billing access to MNOs in emerging markets.

Trinity Mobile Billing Platform – We have developed the Trinity Platform as a proprietary high-performance mobile acceptance, billing and content aggregation platform for value-added services (“VAS”). Using the Platform, our partners can aggregate mobile traffic utilizing the most popular methods of monetization on the VAS market.

Mobile Solutions Competition. Digital Provider primarily competes with other companies operating in the mobile payment processing market in emerging markets. Certain competitors have been in business longer than Digital Provider and have significantly greater financial and other resources than Digital Provider. In order to successfully increase our business in that market, we must convince content providers to use Digital Provider’s services over competitive platforms that may already be in use. Digital Provider must also retain good relations with MNOs providing service. We believe that Digital Provider will be able to effectively compete in the mobile payment processing market in Russia based primarily upon services offered, functionality and ease of use of features offered. Failure to successfully continue developing Digital Provider’s payment processing operations, maintain Digital Provider’s existing contracts with MNOs and content providers and enter into additional contracts with content providers to use Digital Provider’s services may harm our revenue and business prospects.

Mobile Solutions Risk Management. We are responsible for content compliance and merchant underwriting and are subject to chargebacks for the full value of the transaction. If any such chargebacks arise we pass these chargebacks to our merchants, in the event we are unsuccessful in passing these charges to the merchant we are responsible for these chargebacks. During 2016 and 2015 we had no losses from our mobile payments processing volume as all chargebacks were collected from content partners and aggregators.

Mobile Solutions Licensing and Certifications. The relationships between Digital Provider and telecommunications carriers in Russia are governed by the general rules of civil law for the provision of services (Chapter 39 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). In addition, because the “information and entertainment services” (content services) provided by Digital Provider are inextricably linked with the networks of telecommunications carriers, these services are subject to the requirements of the Rules of Mobile Communications Services Provision, approved by the Decree No. 328 of the Russian Federation Government dated May 25, 2005. These Rules govern the relationship between a customer using mobile communication services and a telecommunications carrier in respect of mobile radio communications services, mobile radiotelephone services and/or mobile satellite radio services in the public network. Although Digital Provider is not a telecommunications carrier, many requirements of the decree above are present in Digital Provider’s contracts with telecommunications carriers.  

Mobile Solutions Mobile Network Operators. In order for us to provide payment and SMS messaging services to mobile subscribers and debit their accounts for payments, we need to have contractual agreements with marketing subsidiaries of mobile operators, which allow us to bill mobile subscribers. We have direct and indirect agreements with mobile operators and mobile operator aggregators in over 40 countries. In addition, we also have contracts and our platform is integrated with various mobile operator aggregators, which give us access to mobile operator networks in approximately 50 countries.

An example of processing a mobile transaction, the below diagram illustrates the participants involved in a mobile payment transaction. Merchants are primarily content or digital goods providers including social networks, games and online magazines.

Online Solutions Segment

The following table presents Online Solutions Segment information as a percentage of total revenue:

Online Solutions Operations. Through our subsidiary, PayOnline, we provide a wide range of value-added solutions utilizing our fully-integrated, platform agnostic electronic commerce offering that simplifies complex enterprise online transaction processing challenges from payment acceptance and processing through risk prevention and payment security via point-to-point encryption and tokenization solutions. Our proprietary SaaS suite of solutions for electronic and mobile commerce gateway and payment processing platform is compliant at Level 1 of PCI DSS, streamlines the order-to-cash process, improves electronic payment acceptance and reduces the scope of burden of PCI DSS compliance. PayOnline holds the leadership position in the Russian Federation as one of the largest independent Internet Payment Services Provider (“IPSP”).

Our Online Solutions segment revenues are primarily derived from processing credit and debit card transactions for online merchants and includes fees for providing processing, loyalty and software services. Revenues are generated from a variety of sources, including:

In a transaction using a Visa or MasterCard card, the allocation of funds resulting from a $100 transaction is as follows:

* Excludes commissions

Approximately 20% of leading e-commerce merchants in Russia use the PayOnline platform to accept payment transactions in Russia, Europe and Asia.

Online Transaction Solutions Marketing. The vast majority of PayOnline sales are direct sales, through our marketing efforts and fully automated leads management system. The marketing department of PayOnline consists of 5 specialists, responsible for product pricing, company branding and positioning, monitoring of competitors and technological developments, public relations and web marketing activities. Our marketing mix includes, but not limited to:

Our sales department consists of 25 specialists who are responsible for managing the leads, execution of the client agreements, client boarding, customization of the solutions, implementation of the payment acceptance solutions and post-sale client relationship. During 2016, we attracted 320 new clients, of which 92% were in Russian Federation / CIS and 8% in Europe and Asia. Merchants we served during 2016 processed an average of $54,325 each month in credit card transactions and had an average transaction value of $21.30 per transaction.

Online Solutions. Our solutions combine payment processing, online shopping cart tools, web site design, web hosting, web related services, APIs and SDKs which enable businesses to establish a presence and commercial capability on the Internet or within a Mobile Application environment in a quick and simple fashion.

PayOnline Platform – We have developed the PayOnline Platform, a proprietary technology platform serving large and fast growing internet-led multinationals with complex payment needs, supported by our vertical expertise. Our reliable and secure proprietary technology platform enables merchants to accept a vast array of payment types, across multiple channels, anywhere in the world. Utilizing PayOnline Platform, we have built universal flexible payment solution adapted for websites and mobile applications. The solution includes:

Payments from Start to Finish. PayOnline Platform reduces the payment integration time for merchants, banks and SaaS providers to just a few minutes with its PayOnline Application Program Interface (“API”) service. PayOnline integration service simplifies complex payment integration when using APIs and makes the laborious task of adapting payment processes obsolete.

Complete Toolkit for Online Business. More than 20 integration modules for the world's most popular CMS (Content Management System) are available for clients with sites created on basis of CMS. A complete, modular system of web-based services gives our merchants the flexibility to add more options as and when required - without costly or lengthy IT projects. 

Online Solutions Competition. PayOnline primarily competes with other companies operating in the online payment processing market in emerging markets. In our key geographical market – Russian Federation, we compete primarily with the acquiring banks and payment processors (including payment aggregators). PayOnline cannot compete with acquiring banks or payment processors on pricing. Our major advantages relate to our robust, payment processor agnostic solution that simplifies complex enterprise online payment processing challenges from payment acceptance and processing through to risk prevention and payment security via tokenization solutions. Our competitive advantages include:

Online Solutions Industry Mix and Geography. We have developed significant expertise in industries that we believe present opportunities for growth. These include:

The following table reflects the percentage concentration of our merchant base by class:

Online Solutions Risk Management. In the emerging markets, we focus our sales efforts on electronic commerce merchants and have developed systems and procedures designed to minimize our exposure to potential merchant losses.

We have developed and continue to improve our proprietary fraud-monitoring system. To ensure the highest security level, our anti-fraud system is operating in tight connection with our internal 3-D Secure MPI (message passing interface) module. Proprietary fraud filters and anti-fraud BIN monitoring allows disabling and filtering acceptance of virtual pre-paid cards.

Effective risk management helps us minimize merchant losses for the mutual benefit of our merchants and ourselves. Our Anti-Fraud System allows us to identify and prevent up to 99.98% of potential fraud related to bankcard processing in the electronic commerce environment. Our Underwriting and Risk Management Policy and procedures help to protect us from fraud perpetrated by our merchants. 154 different fraud filters allow our clients to maintain high level or payment conversion, averaging at 98.7%, while maintaining chargeback related losses as low as 0.023%. Our risk management is conducted in both manual and automatic modes. 

Manual Risk Management involves specialists of our Underwriting and Risk Management Department, who are responsible for the following:

PayOnline Anti-Fraud System is our proprietary, fully automated risk management system. The system is generally based on the latest know-how of the informational and financial security aspects of the payment processing industry, as well as rules and recommendations of Visa and MasterCard on fraud prevention in electronic commerce.

Major components of PayOnline Anti-Fraud System include but are not limited to:

Online Solutions Licensing and Certifications. In order to perform services at the highest level of safety and quality of service, PayOnline holds various industry certifications and licenses.

Online Solutions Sponsoring Banks and Data Processors. Because we are not a “member bank” or a licensed financial services institution as defined by Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover (“Card Associations”), in order to authorize and settle payment transactions for merchants, we must be partner with a financial institution that holds member bank status with Card Association (“Partner Bank”) and various third-party vendors (“Data Processors”) to assist us with these functions. Card Association rules restrict us from performing funds settlement or accessing merchant settlement funds and require that these funds be in the possession of a Partner Bank until the merchant is funded.

Partner Bank. Since 2008, PayOnline has been working to increase the number of partnership agreements and platform integrations with different banks, financial institutions and payment processors. Our worldwide expansion requires a broader range of regions and currencies covered by such partnership agreements, enabling us to provide international payment processing.

Our key partnerships and integrations in Russian Federation include:

Our key partnerships and integrations in CIS:

Our key partnerships and integrations in Europe, Asia and United States include:

As an example of processing an electronic payment, the below diagram illustrates the participants involved in a payment transaction. There are four main participants, the Merchant, the Service Provider (PayOnline), the Partner Bank and the Data Processor (PayOnline). Merchants are primarily business owners that accept credit card payment in exchange for their merchandise and services.

Research and Development 

We recognize the importance of having access to the leading technology in order to develop advanced products for our customers, independent sales agents, consumers and for our own internal use. To this end, development of our products is conducted in-house. We are maintaining three development centers and four development teams of IT architects, quality assurance professionals and software developers. We support mobile platforms including Apple® iOS, Android®, and Windows®. We also support server side software development for Java, ASP.NET, and PHP platforms. We also provide user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) engineering and system administration dedicated to financial services and value-added technology businesses.

Our IT development center is headquartered in North Miami Beach, Florida (U.S.), where we employ a Chief Technology Officer (“CTO”), IT Systems Administrator and POS products Testing & Development Engineer.

Our Moscow (Russia) IT development center employs two technical directors, managing Digital Provider and PayOnline platform development teams.

Our representative office in Yekaterinburg (Russia) employs two team leaders managing Sales Central and our value-added services development teams.

Our total IT employees totaled 47 at December 31, 2016.

Intellectual Property

We have several trademarks and service marks, which are important to our business. The following trademarks and service marks are the subject of trademark registrations and are used in our financial services business:

We regard our software as proprietary and attempt to protect it, where applicable, with copyrights, trade secret measures and non-disclosure agreements. Despite these protections, it may be possible for competition or users to copy aspects of our intellectual property or to obtain information that we regard as trade secrets. Existing copyright laws afford only limited practical protection for computer software. The laws of foreign countries generally do not protect our proprietary rights in our products to the same extent as the laws of the United States. In addition, we may experience more difficulty in enforcing our proprietary rights in certain foreign jurisdictions.

Employees

Our total number of staff as of December 31, 2016 was 140 full-time employees. The staff in the United States is 26 employees. Additionally, in Russia we have 114 employees consisting of 15 employees at Digital Provider (mobile payments), 12 employees at Net Element Russia (Executives/Accounting), 68 employees at PayOnline (online payments) and 19 employees in Yekaterinburg (System Development).

Corporate History

Our Company was formed in 2010 and incorporated as a Cayman Islands exempted company with limited liability under the name Cazador Acquisition Corporation Ltd. (“Cazador”). Cazador was a blank check company incorporated for the purpose of effecting a merger; share capital exchange; asset acquisition; share purchase; reorganization or similar business combination with one or more operating businesses or assets. In 2012, Cazador completed a merger (the “Merger”) with Net Element, Inc., a Delaware corporation, which was a company with businesses in the online media and mobile commerce payment processing markets. Immediately prior to the effectiveness of the Merger, the Company (then known as Cazador) changed its jurisdiction of incorporation by discontinuing as an exempted company in the Cayman Islands and continuing and domesticating as a corporation incorporated under the laws of the State of Delaware. Effective upon consummation of the Merger, (i) Net Element, Inc. was merged with and into the Company, resulting in Net Element ceasing to exist and the Company continuing as the surviving company in the Merger, and (ii) the Company changed its name to Net Element International, Inc. In 2013, the Company divested its non-core entertainment assets. In December 2013, the Company changed its name to Net Element, Inc. We entered the mobile payments business through the launch of Tot Money (renamed Digital Provider in 2015) in Russia in 2012. We entered the financial technology and value-added transactional service business through the acquisitions of Unified Payments in April 2013 and Aptito in June 2013. We entered the online payment business with our acquisition of PayOnline in May 2015. Our principal office is located at 3363 NE 163^rd Street, Suite 705, North Miami Beach, Florida 33160, and our main telephone number is (305) 507-8808.

Regulation

Various aspects of our business are subject to U.S. and non-U.S. federal, state and local regulation. The operations of our subsidiary, Digital Provider, are subject to regulation in non-U.S. markets it operates in and may become subject to the laws and regulations of additional foreign jurisdictions as and when its business expands into additional markets. Many domestic and foreign laws and regulations that affect companies conducting business on the Internet and companies transmitting user information and payments via text message or other electronic means are still evolving and the interpretation of such laws and regulations are often uncertain. Failure to comply with applicable laws and regulations may result in the suspension or revocation of licenses or registrations, the limitation, suspension or termination of services and/or the imposition of civil and criminal penalties and/or fines. The services of Digital Provider to mobile phone carriers also are subject to certain of the rules and policies of such carriers and ongoing contractual covenants with such carriers, the violation of which may result in penalties and/or fines and possible termination of Digital Provider’s services. Certain of our services are also subject to rules set by various payment networks, such as Visa and MasterCard, as more fully described below under “Association and Network Rules”.

Association and Network Rules. While not legal or governmental regulation, we are subject to the network rules of Visa, MasterCard and other payment networks. In order to provide processing services, a number of our subsidiaries are registered with Visa and/or MasterCard as service providers for member institutions. Various subsidiaries of ours are also processor level members of numerous networks or are otherwise subject to various network rules in connection with processing services and other services we provide. As such, we are subject to applicable card association, networks and national scheme rules that could subject us to fines or penalties. The payment networks routinely update and modify their requirements. On occasion, we receive notices of non-compliance and fines, which might be related to excessive chargebacks by a merchant or data security failures. Our failure to comply with the networks’ requirements or to pay the fines they impose could cause the termination of our registration and require us to stop providing payment services.

Dodd-Frank Act. In July 2010, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 was signed into law in the United States. The Dodd-Frank Act has resulted in significant structural and other changes to the regulation of the financial services industry. Among other things, the Dodd-Frank Act established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, to regulate consumer financial services, including many offered by our clients.

The Dodd-Frank Act provided two self-executing statutory provisions limiting the ability of payment card networks to impose certain restrictions that became effective in July 2010. The first provision allows merchants to set minimum dollar amounts (not to exceed $10) for the acceptance of a credit card (and allows federal governmental entities and institutions of higher education to set maximum amounts for the acceptance of credit cards). The second provision allows merchants to provide discounts or incentives to entice consumers to pay with cash, checks, debit cards or credit cards, as the merchant prefers.

Separately, the so-called Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act provided that interchange fees that a card issuer or payment network receives or charges for debit transactions will now be regulated by the Federal Reserve and must be “reasonable and proportional” to the cost incurred by the card issuer in authorizing, clearing and settling the transaction. Payment network fees, such as switch fees may not be used directly or indirectly to compensate card issuers in circumvention of the interchange transaction fee restrictions. In July 2011, the Federal Reserve published the final rules governing debit interchange fees. Effective in October 2011, debit interchange rates for card issuing financial institutions with more than $10 billion of assets are capped at $0.21 per transaction with an additional component of five basis points of the transaction’s value to reflect a portion of the issuer’s fraud losses plus, for qualifying issuing financial institutions, an additional $0.01 per transaction in debit interchange for fraud prevention costs. The debit interchange fee would be $0.24 per transaction on a $38 debit card transaction, the average transaction size for debit card transactions. In July 2013, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia determined that the Federal Reserve’s regulations implementing the Durbin Amendment were invalid. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, or D.C. Circuit, reversed this decision on March 21, 2014, generally upholding the Federal Reserve’s interpretation of the Durbin Amendment and the Federal Reserve’s rules implementing it. On August 18, 2014, the plaintiffs in this litigation filed a petition for a writ of certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the D.C. Circuit’s decision with respect to the interchange fee cap. We continue to monitor developments in the litigation surrounding these rules. Regardless of the outcome of the litigation, the cap on interchange fees is not expected to have a material direct impact on our results of operations.

In addition, the new rules contain prohibitions on network exclusivity and merchant routing restrictions. Beginning in October 2011, (i) a card payment network may not prohibit a card issuer from contracting with any other card payment network for the processing of electronic debit transactions involving the issuer’s debit cards and (ii) card issuing financial institutions and card payment networks may not inhibit the ability of merchants to direct the routing of debit card transactions over any card payment networks that can process the transactions. Since April 2012, most debit card issuers have been required to enable at least two unaffiliated card payment networks on each debit card. We do not expect the prohibition on network exclusivity to impact our ability to pass on network fees and other costs to our clients. These regulatory changes create both opportunities and challenges for us. Increased regulation may add to the complexity of operating a payment processing business, creating an opportunity for larger competitors to differentiate themselves both in product capabilities and service delivery.

Federal Trade Commission Act and Other Laws Impacting our Customers’ Business. All persons engaged in commerce, including, but not limited to, us and our merchant and financial institution customers are subject to Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act prohibiting unfair or deceptive acts or practices, or UDAP. In addition, there are other laws, rules and or regulations, including the Telemarketing Sales Act, that may directly impact the activities of our merchant customers and in some cases may subject us, as the merchant’s payment processor, to investigations, fees, fines and disgorgement of funds in the event we are deemed to have aided and abetted or otherwise provided the means and instrumentalities to facilitate the illegal activities of the merchant through our payment processing services. Various federal and state regulatory enforcement agencies including the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, and the states’ attorney general have authority to take action against nonbanks that engage in UDAP or violate other laws, rules and regulations and to the extent we are processing payments for a merchant that may be in violation of laws, rules and regulations, we may be subject to enforcement actions and as a result may incur losses and liabilities that may impact our business.

Rules and Policies of and Contractual Covenants with Mobile Phone Carriers. While not governmental regulation, Digital Provider is subject to certain of the rules and policies of mobile phone carriers to which Digital Provider provides payment processing services and ongoing contractual covenants with such mobile phone carriers. The mobile phone carriers may from time to time update or otherwise modify or supplement their rules and policies. Digital Provider periodically is subject to the imposition of fines or penalties as a result of failure to comply with such rules, policies and/or contractual covenants. Digital Provider’s failure to comply with the mobile phone carriers’ respective requirements or to pay the fines or penalties they impose could result in the termination of Digital Provider’s services.

Laws and Rules of the Russian Federation. The relationships between Digital Provider (formerly known as TOT Money) and telecommunications carriers in Russia are governed by the general rules of civil law for the provision of services (Chapter 39 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). In addition, because the “information and entertainment services” (content services) provided by Digital Provider are inextricably linked with the networks of telecommunications carriers, these services are subject to the requirements of the Rules of Mobile Communications Telephone Services Provision, approved by the Decree No. 328 of the Russian Federation Government dated December 9, 2014. These rules govern the relationship between a customer using mobile communication services and a telecommunications carrier in respect of mobile radio communications services, mobile radiotelephone services and/or mobile satellite radio services in the public network. Although Digital Provider is not a telecommunications carrier, many requirements of such Rules are present in Digital Provider’s contracts with telecommunications carriers, and such contracts impose responsibility and liability on Digital Provider for violations.

Digital Provider has a license for the provision of telematics services in Russia. Digital Provider is considered an operator of telematics services in Russia because it has a direct connection to equipment of telecommunications carriers and it affects electronic communications (i.e., receiving, processing and/or transmitting electronic messages). Operators of telematics services in Russia are regulated by the Federal Law “On Communication” dated July 2, 2003 No. 126-FZ. This Federal Law provides the legal basis for activity in the field of communications in the Russian Federation and territories under the Russian Federation jurisdiction, defines the powers of public authorities in the field of communications, as well as the rights and responsibilities of persons involved in such activities or using communication services. Digital Provider also is subject to the Rules of Telematics Services Provision approved by the Decree of the Russian Federation Government dated September 10, 2007 No. 575. These Rules govern the relationship between a customer or a user, on the one hand, and a telecommunications carrier providing telematics communication services, on the other hand, in the provision of telematics communication services.   

The activity of Digital Provider to some extent is regulated by the Federal Law “On Operational and Investigative Activities” dated August 12, 1995 No. 144-FZ. This Federal Law determines the content of the operational and investigative activities in the Russian Federation, and provides for a system of guarantees in the process of operational and investigative operations. Operational and investigative activities include activities carried out openly and secretly by operational branches of certain government bodies in order to protect life, health, rights and freedoms of the person and the citizen, property, security of the society and the state from criminal attacks.

In carrying out activities on the Internet in Russia, Digital Provider is subject to the Federal Law “On Advertising” dated March 13, 2006 No. 38-FZ. The objectives of this Federal Law are the development of markets for goods and services based on the principles of fair competition, ensuring the common economic space in the Russian Federation, the realization of the rights of consumers to receive fair and accurate advertising, creating favorable conditions for the production and distribution of public service announcements, preventions of violations of the Russian Federation on advertising, as well as the suppression of improper advertising. Digital Provider’s activities on the Internet in Russia also are subject to the Federal Law “On Protection of Children from Information Harmful to Health” dated December 29, 2010 No. 436-FZ. This Federal Law provides regulations protecting children from information harmful to their health and/or development.

Concerning relations with Federal communication service providers, Digital Provider can be involved in regulation of personal data of subscribers. In case of transferring by Federal communication service providers’ information which includes personal data Digital Provider has to take measures to protect such data as the operator of personal data must take. The list of such measures is described in Federal Law “On Personal Data” dated 27.07.2006 No 152. This Federal Law and Federal Law “On Communication” establish rules of usage of personal data of subscribers. Taking into account that this regulation is to be applied only in case of transferring information with personal data from Federal communication service providers it is important to clarify that common execution of contracts with these providers do not stipulate transferring of personal data.

Business activities of PayOnline in Russian Federation are governed by the general rules of civil law (for example, Chapter 39 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation) and by special laws, such as the Federal Law of June 27, 2011 N 161-FZ «On the National Payment System», Federal Law of 27.07. 2006 N 152-FZ "On Personal Data".

In the framework of the Federal Law of June 27, 2011, No. 161-FZ "On the National Payment System", PayOnline activities are regarded as the activities of the "operation center" (Article 17), which aims to ensure the exchange of electronic messages between billing participants in accordance with the rules of the payment system.

It should also be noted that in connection with the introduction of changes to the law that came into force on September 1, 2015, according to which all personal data of individuals - citizens of the Russian Federation, should be collected, processed and stored on the territory of the Russian Federation. PayOnline was forced to terminate long-term relations with the New York data center Stafford and transfer all servers to the territory of the Russian Federation.

Federal Law No. 152-FZ of July 27, 2006 "On Personal Data" as a whole regulates the activities of absolutely all organizations that process personal data of individuals. PayOnline, following the requirements of the law, registered as a personal data operator in Roskomnadzor under the number: 10-0104880.

Other Laws and Regulations 

Since we collect certain information from members and users on our platform, it will be subject to current and future government regulations regarding the collection, use and safeguarding of consumer information over the Internet and mobile communication devices. These regulations and laws may involve taxation, tariffs, user privacy, rights of publicity, data protection, content, intellectual property, distribution, electronic contracts and other communications, consumer protection and electronic payment services. In many cases, it may be unclear how existing laws governing issues such as property ownership, sales and other taxes, libel and personal privacy apply to the Internet or mobile communication services as the vast majority of these laws were adopted prior to the advent of these technologies and do not contemplate or address the unique issues raised by the Internet and e-commerce.

There are a number of legislative proposals that are anticipated or pending before the U.S. Congress, various state legislative bodies, and foreign governments concerning data protection which could affect us. Many states, for example, have already passed laws requiring notification to subscribers when there is a security breach of personal data. It is possible that these laws may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent with our data practices. If so, in addition to the possibility of fines, this could result in an order requiring that we change our data practices, which could have an adverse effect on our business.

Legislation could be passed that limits our ability to use or store information about our users. The Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC”) and various states have established regulatory guidelines issued under the Federal Trade Commission Act and various state acts, respectively, that govern the collection, use and storage of consumer information, establishing principles relating to notice, consent, access and data integrity and security. Our practices are designed to comply with these guidelines. For example, we disclose that we collect a range of information about our users, such as their names, email addresses, search histories and activity on our platform. We also use and store such information primarily to personalize the experience on our platforms, provide customer support and display relevant advertising. While we do not sell or share personally identifiable information with third parties for direct marketing purposes, we do have relationships with third parties that may allow them access to user information for other purposes.

We believe our policies and practices comply with the FTC privacy guidelines and other applicable laws and regulations. However, if our belief proves incorrect, or if these guidelines, laws or regulations or their interpretations change or new legislation or regulations are enacted, we may be compelled to provide additional disclosures to our users, obtain additional consents from our users before collecting or using their information or implement new safeguards to help our users manage our (or others’) use of their information, among other changes.

Seasonality 

Historically, we have experienced seasonal fluctuations in our revenues as a result of consumer spending patterns. Revenues have been weaker during the first quarter of the calendar year and stronger during the second, third and fourth quarters. We expect our business to continue experiencing seasonal fluctuations consistent with this historical pattern.

Available Information

We are subject to the informational requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and file or furnish reports, proxy statements, and other information with the SEC. You can read our SEC filings over the Internet at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. Our filings with the SEC, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and any amendments to those reports, also are available free of charge on the investors section of our website at http://investor.netelement.com when such reports are available on the SEC’s website. Further corporate governance information, including our certificate of incorporation, bylaws, governance guidelines, board committee charters, and code of business conduct and ethics, is also available on the investors section of our website.

You may also read and copy any document we file with the SEC at its public reference facilities at 100 F Street, N.E., Room 1580, Washington, DC 20549. You may also obtain copies of the documents at prescribed rates by writing to the Public Reference Section at the SEC at 100 F Street, NE, Room 1580, Washington, DC 20549. Please call the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330 for further information on the operation of the public reference facilities. The contents of the websites referred to above are not incorporated into this filing or in any other report or document we file with the SEC, and any references to these websites are intended to be inactive textual references only.

Item 1A.  Risk Factors.

Investing in our securities involves a high degree of risk. You should carefully consider the risks and uncertainties described below, together with all of the other information in this Report, including “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and our consolidated financial statements and related notes, as well as the preceding “Business” section of this Report, before engaging in any transaction in our securities. Any of the following risks could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and/or prospects, and cause the value of our securities to decline, which could cause you to lose all or part of your investment.

Risks Related to Our Business and Operations

Our financial condition creates doubt as to whether we will continue as a going concern. If we do not continue as a going concern, investors may lose their entire investment. 

Since our inception, we have incurred significant operating losses. We sustained a net loss of approximately $13.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2016 and an accumulated deficit of approximately $157 million at December 31, 2016. We had negative working capital of approximately $6.3 million at December 31, 2016. Our current assets at December 31, 2016 included $0.6 million in cash. $7.6 million of accounts receivable and $1.5 million in prepaid expenses. Our current liabilities included $13.0 million in accounts payable and accrued expenses, $1.4 million in deferred revenue, $0.8 million in current notes payable and $0.3 million in due to related parties. As of the filing date of this Report with the SEC, management expects that our cash flows from operations will not be sufficient to fund our current operations through 2017. We will require additional capital in order to continue our existing business operations and to fund our obligations. We currently believe that we will require an additional $4.8 million in financing to continue operations as currently conducted, continue our payment processing businesses and to pay for other currently anticipated capital expenditures over the next 12 months. We also are obligated to make a $1.8 million payment in May 2017 relating to our obligations under the PayOnline acquisition.

Additional funds may be raised through debt financing and/or the issuance of equity securities, there being no assurance that any type of financing on terms satisfactory to us will be available or otherwise occur.

Debt financing must be repaid regardless of whether we generate revenues or cash flows from operations and may be secured by substantially all of our assets. Any equity financing or debt financing that requires the issuance of equity securities or warrants to the lender would cause the percentage ownership by our current stockholders to be diluted, which dilution may be substantial. Also, any additional equity securities issued may have rights, preferences or privileges senior to those of existing stockholders. If such financings are not available when required or are not available on acceptable terms, we may be unable to implement our business plans or take advantage of business opportunities, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and/or prospects and may ultimately require us to suspend or cease operations, which could cause investors to lose the entire amount of their investment. 

Global economic, political, and other conditions may adversely affect trends in consumer, business, and government spending, which may adversely impact the demand for our services and our revenue and profitability.

Financial services, payments, and technology industries in which we operate depend heavily upon the overall level of consumer, business, and government spending. A sustained deterioration in the general economic conditions (including distress in financial markets, turmoil in specific economies around the world, and additional government intervention), particularly in the United States or Europe, or increases in interest rates in key countries in which we operate may adversely affect our financial performance by reducing the number or average purchase amount of transactions involving payment cards. A reduction in the amount of consumer spending could result in a decrease of our revenue and profits. The current threats to global economic growth include geopolitical instability in Russia, Ukraine, the Middle East and other oil producing countries. Instability in these regions could affect economic conditions in Europe and the United States.

Adverse economic trends may accelerate the timing, or increase the impact of, risks to our financial performance. Such trends may include, but are not limited to, the following:

A weakening in the economy could also force some retailers to close, resulting in exposure to potential credit losses and declines in transactions, and reduced earnings on transactions due to a potential shift to large discount merchants. Additionally, credit card issuers may reduce credit limits and become more selective in their card issuance practices. Changes in economic conditions could adversely impact our future revenues and profits and result in a downgrade of our corporate capacity to borrow, which may lead to termination or modification of certain contracts and make it more difficult for us to obtain new business. Any of these developments could have a material adverse impact on our overall business and results of operations.

Our ability to anticipate and respond to changing industry trends and the needs and preferences of our clients and consumers may affect our competitiveness or demand for our products, which may adversely affect our operating results.

Financial services, payments, and technology industries are subject to rapid technological advancements, new products and services, including mobile payment applications, evolving competitive landscape, developing industry standards, and changing client and consumer needs and preferences. We expect that new services and technologies applicable to the financial services, payments, and technology industries will continue to emerge. These changes in technology may limit the competitiveness of and demand for our services. Also, our clients and their customers continue to adopt new technology for business and personal uses. We must anticipate and respond to these changes in order to remain competitive within our relative markets. For example, our ability to provide innovative POS technologies to our merchant clients could have an impact on our North America Transaction Solutions segment.

Failure to develop value-added services that meet the needs and preferences of our clients could have an adverse effect on our ability to compete effectively in our industry. Furthermore, clients' and their customers' potential negative reaction to our products and services can spread quickly through social media and damage our reputation before we have the opportunity to respond. If we are unable to anticipate or respond to technological changes or evolving industry standards on a timely basis, our ability to remain competitive could be materially adversely affected.

Substantial and increasingly intense competition worldwide in the financial services, payments, and technology industries may materially and adversely affect our overall business and operations.

Financial services, payments, and technology industries are highly competitive and our payment solutions compete against all forms of financial services and payment systems, including cash and checks, and electronic, mobile, and e-commerce payment platforms. If we are unable to differentiate ourselves from our competitors, drive value for our clients and/or effectively align our resources with our goals and objectives, we may not be able to compete effectively. Our competitors may introduce their own value-added or other services or solutions more effectively than we do, which could adversely impact our growth. We also compete against new entrants that have developed alternative payment systems, e-commerce payment systems, and payment systems for mobile devices. Failure to compete effectively against any of these competitive threats could have a material adverse effect on us. In addition, the highly competitive nature of our industry could lead to increased pricing pressure which could have a material impact on our overall business and results of operations.

Potential changes in the competitive landscape, including disintermediation from other participants in the payments value chain, could harm our business.

We expect that the competitive landscape will continue to change, including:

Failure to compete effectively against any of these competitive threats could have a material adverse effect on us.

The market for our electronic commerce services is evolving and may not continue to develop or grow rapidly enough for us to develop and increase our profitability.

If the number of electronic commerce transactions does not continue to grow or if consumers or businesses do not continue to adopt our services, it could have a material adverse effect on the profitability of our business, financial condition, and results of operations. We believe future growth in the electronic commerce market will be driven by the cost, ease-of-use, and quality of products and services offered to consumers and businesses. In order to consistently increase and maintain our profitability, consumers and businesses must continue to adopt our services, including our merchant suite, Aptito and PayOnline solutions.

If we cannot compete effectively, we will lose business.

We believe our mobile payment processing business is positioned to be competitive in our target markets. We cannot guarantee that we will be able to maintain or increase revenues from our existing operations, or that our proposed future operations will be implemented successfully. Our principal competitive considerations include: 

We rely on third-party processors and service providers; if they fail or no longer agree to provide their services, our merchant relationships could be adversely affected and we could lose business. 

We rely on agreements with several large payment processing organizations to enable us to provide card authorization, data capture, settlement and merchant accounting services and access to various reporting tools for the merchants we serve. We also outsource other services including reorganizing and accumulating daily transaction data on a merchant-by-merchant and card issuer-by-card issuer basis and forwarding the accumulated data to the relevant bankcard associations. Many of these organizations and service providers are our competitors, and we do not have long-term contracts with most of them. Typically, our contracts with these third parties are for one-year and are subject to cancellation upon limited notice by either party. The termination by our service providers of their arrangements with us or their failure to perform their services efficiently and effectively may adversely affect our relationships with the merchants whose accounts we serve and may cause those merchants to terminate their processing agreements with us.

We rely on bank sponsors, which have substantial discretion with respect to certain elements of our business practices, in order to process bankcard transactions. If these sponsorships are terminated and we are not able to secure or successfully migrate merchant portfolios to new bank sponsors, we will not be able to conduct our business.

Because we are not a bank, we are unable to belong to and directly access the Visa and MasterCard bankcard associations. Visa and MasterCard operating regulations require us to be sponsored by a bank in order to process bankcard transactions. We are currently registered with Visa and MasterCard through the sponsorship from banks that are members of the card associations. The principal sponsoring bank through which we process the significant majority of our transactions is BMO Harris Bank. If our sponsorships are terminated and we are not able to secure or successfully migrate merchant portfolios to new bank sponsors, we will not be able to conduct our business.

If we or our bank sponsors fail to adhere to the standards of the Visa and MasterCard payment card associations, our registrations with these associations could be terminated, and we could be required to stop providing payment processing services for Visa and MasterCard. 

Substantially all of the transactions we process involve Visa or MasterCard. If we or our bank sponsors fail to comply with the applicable requirements of the Visa or MasterCard payment card associations, Visa or MasterCard could suspend or terminate our registration. The termination of our registration or any changes in the Visa or MasterCard rules that would impair our registration could prevent us from providing transactional processing services.

If PayOnline fails to maintain its key partnerships with banks, financial institutions or payment processors, our financial results could be adversely affected.

PayOnline’s business relies on partnering with different banks, financial institutions and payment processors to expand globally in order to enable it to provide international payment processing. To the extent PayOnline fails to maintain key partnerships with such banks, financial institutions or payment processors, our financial results could be adversely affected. Such failure to maintain partnerships may be due to mergers and/or consolidations of banks, financial institutions and payment processors, which may result in potential changes in their business processes that could negatively affect PayOnline operations, in particular in emerging markets, such as Kazakhstan.

We periodically experience increases in interchange and other related costs, and if we cannot pass these increases along to our merchants, our profit margins will decline.

We pay interchange fees and assessments to issuing banks through the card associations for each transaction we process using their credit and debit cards. From time to time, the card associations increase the interchange fees that they charge processors and the sponsoring banks. At their sole discretion, our sponsoring banks have the right to pass any increases in interchange fees on to us. In addition, our sponsoring banks may seek to increase their Visa and MasterCard sponsorship fees to us, all of which are based upon the dollar amount of the payment transactions we process. If we are not able to pass these fee increases along to merchants through corresponding increases in merchant discount, our profit margins will decline. 

To acquire and retain merchant accounts, we depend on independent non-bank sales groups that do not serve us exclusively.

We rely on the efforts of ISGs to market our services to merchants seeking to establish a credit card processing relationship. ISGs are companies that seek to introduce to us, as well as our competitors, newly established and existing small merchants, including retailers, restaurants and other service providers. Generally, our agreements with ISGs are not exclusive and they have the right to refer merchants to other providers of transaction payment processing services. Our failure to maintain our relationships with our existing ISGs and to recruit and establish new relationships with other ISGs could adversely affect our revenues and internal growth and increase our merchant attrition.

Unauthorized disclosure of data, whether through cybersecurity breaches, computer viruses or otherwise, could expose us to liability, protracted and costly litigation and could damage our reputation. 

We process, store and/or transmit sensitive data, such as names, addresses, credit or debit card numbers and bank account numbers, and we may have liability if we fail to protect this data in accordance with applicable laws and our clients’ specifications. The loss of data could result in significant fines and sanctions by our clients or governmental bodies, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. These concerns about security are increased when we transmit information over the Internet. Computer viruses can be distributed and spread rapidly over the Internet and could infiltrate our systems, which might disrupt our services and make them unavailable. In addition, a significant cybersecurity breach could result in payment networks prohibiting us from processing transactions on their networks or the loss of clients. We have been in the past and could be in the future, subject to breaches of security by hackers. It is possible that our encryption of data and other protective measures may not prevent unauthorized access. Although we have not to date incurred material losses or liabilities as a result of those breaches, a future breach of our system may subject us to material losses or liability, including payment of fines and claims for unauthorized purchases with misappropriated credit or debit card or bank account information or other similar fraud claims. A misuse of such data or a cybersecurity breach could harm our reputation and deter clients from using electronic payments generally and our services specifically, increase our operating expenses in order to correct the breaches or failures, expose us to uninsured liability, increase our risk of regulatory scrutiny, subject us to lawsuits and/or result in the imposition of material penalties and fines under applicable laws or by our clients. 

Our operating results are subject to seasonality, and, if our revenues are below our seasonal norms during our historically stronger quarters, our financial results could be adversely affected.

We have experienced in the past, and expect to continue to experience, seasonal fluctuations in our revenues as a result of consumer spending patterns. Historically, revenues have been weaker during the first quarter of the calendar year and stronger during the second, third and fourth quarters. If, for any reason, our revenues are below seasonal norms during the second, third or fourth quarter, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected. 

New and potential governmental regulations designed to protect or limit access to consumer information could adversely affect our ability to provide, or impair the value of, the services we currently provide to our merchants.

Due to the increasing public concern over consumer privacy rights, governmental bodies in the United States and abroad have adopted, and are considering adopting, additional laws and regulations restricting the purchase, sale and sharing of personal information about customers. For example, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act requires non-affiliated third-party service providers to financial institutions to take certain steps to ensure the privacy and security of consumer financial information. We believe our present activities fall under exceptions to the consumer notice and opt-out requirements contained in this law for third-party service providers to financial institutions. However, the laws governing privacy generally remain unsettled. Even in areas where there has been some legislative action, such as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and other consumer statutes, it is difficult to determine whether and how existing and proposed privacy laws or changes to existing privacy laws will apply to our business. Limitations on our ability to access and use customer information could adversely affect our ability to provide the services we currently offer to our merchants or impair the value of these services.  Several states have proposed legislation that would limit the use of personal information gathered using the Internet. Some proposals would require proprietary online service providers and website owners to establish privacy policies. Congress has also considered privacy legislation that could further regulate the use of consumer information obtained over the Internet or in other ways. Our compliance with these privacy laws and related regulations could materially affect our operations. 

Changes to existing laws or the passage of new laws could:

Any changes to existing laws or the passage of new laws that have effects such as those described above could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

If we are required to pay federal, state or local taxes on transaction processing, it could negatively impact our profit margins.

Transaction processing companies may become subject to federal, state or local taxation of certain portions of their fees charged to merchants for their services. Application of these taxes is an emerging issue in our industry and taxing jurisdictions have not yet adopted uniform positions on this topic. If we are required to pay such taxes and are unable to pass this tax expense through to our merchant clients, or are unable to produce increased cash flow to offset such taxes, these taxes would negatively impact our profit margins.

The volume and amounts of the accounts receivable suitable for assignment to the lenders under our current factoring lines of credit as of the time we choose to draw under such facilities may vary, thus potentially reducing the amounts of such draws.  Any such reductions may adversely affect our ability to satisfy our working capital and other liquidity needs.

Our credit facilities are currently structured as factoring lines of credit.  Pursuant to these credit facilities, we assign certain (but not all) of our trade receivables from mobile operators to our lenders.  The amounts of our draws under such facilities from time to time will depend on the amounts of the accounts receivable suitable to the lenders under such credit facilities for such assignment as of the time we choose to draw under such facility.  If we require access to immediate liquidity to meet our working capital requirements, our draws under our credit facilities to satisfy those needs could be potentially reduced (depending on the amounts of the accounts receivable suitable to the lenders as of the time of any such draw), which could adversely affect our ability to satisfy our working capital and other liquidity needs. 

We are subject to foreign laws and regulations, which are subject to change and uncertain interpretation.

We are subject to foreign laws and regulations that affect the electronic payments industry in each of the foreign countries in which we operate. Some of these countries, such as the Russian Federation, have undergone significant political, economic and social change in recent years. In these countries, there is a greater risk of new, unforeseen changes that could result from, among other things, instability or changes in a country’s or region’s economic conditions; changes in laws or regulations or in the interpretation of existing laws or regulations, whether caused by a change in government or otherwise; increased difficulty of conducting business in a country or region due to actual or potential political or military conflict; or action by the European Union, the United States or other governments that may restrict our ability to transact business in a foreign country or with certain foreign individuals or entities, such as sanctions by or against the Russian Federation.

Proposed foreign legislation and regulations could also affect our business. For example, the Russian Federal Tax Service is interested in all betting sites that render services to Russian citizens and wants to have these sites operate their business within the Russian Federation. Some believe that Russian regulators will lobby for a ban on payments for betting sites operating outside of Russia. If such a bill is adopted, then betting sites not registered in Russia could be limited in their ability to process payments, which could harm our customers and adversely affect our payment processing business.

Our management has identified continued material weaknesses in our controls and procedures as of December 31, 2016, which, if not properly remedied, could result in material misstatements in our financial statements. 

As of the end of the period covered by this Report, our management conducted an evaluation, under the supervision and with the participation of our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, of the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Rule 13a-15(e) and Rule 15d-15(e) under the Exchange Act). Based on that evaluation, our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective because there are a limited number of personnel employed and we cannot have an adequate segregation of duties, and due to the material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting as discussed in “Management’s Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting” in Part II, Item 9A of this Report. Accordingly, management cannot provide reasonable assurance of achieving the desired control objective. Management works to mitigate these risks by being personally involved in all substantive transactions and attempts to obtain verification of transactions and accounting policies and treatments involving our operations, including those overseas. We are in the process of reviewing and, where necessary, modifying controls and procedures throughout the Company, particularly in light of our recent acquisitions and the continued integration of these businesses. We will continue to address deficiencies as resources permit.

Acquisition activities could result in operating difficulties, dilution to our stockholders and other harmful consequences, and we may not achieve the anticipated benefits of the acquisitions. 

We have built our current business primarily through acquisitions of intellectual property and other assets in connection with acquiring businesses, such as Unified Payments, Aptito and PayOnline, and we intend to selectively pursue strategic acquisitions in the future. Future acquisitions could divert management’s time and focus from operating our business. In addition, integrating an acquired company, business or technology is risky and may result in unforeseen operating difficulties and expenditures. Foreign acquisitions also involve unique risks related to integration of operations across different cultures and languages, currency risks and the particular economic, political and regulatory risks associated with specific countries. We may not accurately assess the value or prospects of acquisition candidates, and the anticipated benefits from our future or even past acquisitions may not materialize. In addition, future acquisitions or dispositions could result in potentially dilutive issuances of our equity securities, including our common stock, the incurrence of significant amounts of debt, contingent liabilities or amortization expenses, or write-offs of goodwill, any of which could negatively affect our financial condition. 

We are dependent upon certain key relationships. If any of our key relationships were to deteriorate, our business prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected. 

Our success, particularly the success of our payment processing business, is dependent, in part, upon industry relationships of our Chief Executive Officer, Oleg Firer. If we were to lose the services of Mr. Firer, or if the industry relationships of Mr. Firer on which we rely were to deteriorate, our business prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected. To our knowledge, Mr. Firer currently has no plans to retire or leave us in the near future, and we are not aware of any material adverse developments in his industry relationships. We do not have “key person” insurance on the life of Mr. Firer or any other member of our management team.  

If we fail to adequately protect or enforce our intellectual property rights, competitors may create and market products and services similar to ours. In addition, we may be subject to intellectual property litigation and infringement claims by third parties. 

Our ability to compete effectively is dependent in part upon the proprietary nature of our technologies and software platforms. We generally rely on a combination of trade secret, copyright, trademark and patent law to protect our proprietary rights in our intellectual properties. Although we attempt to protect our proprietary technologies through trade secrets, trademarks, patents and license and other agreements, these may be insufficient. In addition, if we license our software in non-U.S. countries, because of differences in foreign laws concerning proprietary rights, our intellectual properties may not receive the same degree of protection in non-U.S. countries as they would in the United States. We may not always be able to successfully protect or enforce our proprietary information and assets against competitors, which may materially adversely affect our business prospects, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, there can be no assurance that our competitors will not independently utilize existing technologies to develop products that are substantially equivalent or superior to ours, which also could materially adversely affect our business prospects, financial condition and results of operations.

Although we do not believe that our intellectual properties infringe the rights of others, and while to date we have not been subject to such claims, we may be exposed to, or threatened with, future litigation by other parties alleging that our technologies infringe their intellectual property rights. Any intellectual property claims, regardless of their merit, could be time consuming, expensive to litigate or settle and could divert management resources and attention. An adverse determination in any intellectual property claim could require us to pay damages and/or stop using our technologies and other material found to be in violation of another party’s rights and could prevent us from licensing our technologies to others. In order to avoid these restrictions, we may have to seek a license. Such a license may not be available on reasonable terms, could require us to pay significant license fees and may significantly increase our operating expenses. A license also may not be available to us at all. As a result, we may be required to use and/or develop non-infringing alternatives, which could require significant effort and expense. If we cannot obtain a license or develop alternatives for any infringing aspects of our business, we may be forced to limit our technologies and may be unable to compete effectively. Any of these adverse consequences could have a material adverse effect on our business prospects, financial condition and results of operations. 

Further, from time to time we may be engaged in disputes regarding the licensing of our intellectual property rights, including matters related to the terms of our licensing arrangements. These types of disputes can be asserted by our licensees or prospective licensees or by other third parties as part of negotiations with us or in private actions seeking monetary damages or injunctive relief or in regulatory actions. Requests for monetary and injunctive remedies asserted in claims like these could be material and could have a significant impact on our business prospects. Any disputes with our licensees, potential licensees or other third parties could materially adversely affect our business prospects, financial condition and results of operations.  

Fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates could negatively affect our financial results.

We earn revenues and interest income, pay expenses, own assets and incur liabilities in countries using currencies other than the U.S. dollar. In the year ended December 31, 2016, we used one functional currency - the Russian ruble - in addition to the U.S. dollar, and derived more than 22% of our total net revenues from operations outside the United States in Russia and CIS. Operations were ceased in the Ukraine in February 2015 and we have no further exposure to the Ukraine hryvnia after that date. As of December 31, 2016, the foreign exchange rate for the Russian Ruble has improved by approximately 20% as compared to the Daily rate at December 31, 2015. Because our consolidated financial statements are presented in U.S. dollars, we must translate net revenues, interest income and expenses, as well as assets and liabilities, into U.S. dollars at exchange rates in effect during or at the end of each reporting period. Therefore, increases or decreases in the value of the U.S. dollar against other major currencies will affect the amounts of our net revenues, interest income, operating expenses and the value of balance sheet items, including intercompany assets and obligations. Because we have operations in Russia, our exchange rate risk is highly sensitive to the prevailing value of the U.S. dollar relative to the Russian ruble, which exchange rates have fluctuated significantly in recent months as a result, in part, of the continuing instability in Ukraine and Syria as well as continued sanctions against Russia. Fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, particularly the U.S. dollar against the Russian ruble, may materially adversely affect our financial results. 

Our business is subject to complex and evolving U.S. and foreign laws and regulations regarding privacy, data protection and other matters. Many of these laws and regulations are subject to change and uncertain interpretations, and could result in claims, changes to our business practices, increased cost of operations or declines in user growth or engagement, or otherwise harm our business. 

We are subject to a number of foreign and domestic laws and regulations that affect companies conducting business on the Internet and companies transmitting user information and payments via text message or other electronic means, many of which are still evolving and the interpretation of which are often uncertain. Failure to comply with applicable laws and regulations may result in the suspension or revocation of licenses or registrations, the limitation, suspension or termination of services and/or the imposition of civil and criminal penalties and/or fines. The services of Digital Provider to mobile phone carriers also are subject to certain of the rules and policies of such carriers and ongoing contractual covenants with such carriers, the violation of which may result in penalties and/or fines and possible termination of Digital Provider’s services. For additional information, see “Business Description - Regulation” in Part I, Item 1 of this Report. 

Poor perception of our brand, business or industry could harm our reputation and adversely affect our business prospects, financial condition and results of operations. 

The success of our business depends in part on our reputation within our industries and with our clients and consumers. We may be the subject of unflattering reports in blogs, video blogs and the media about our business and our business model. Any damage to our reputation could harm our ability to obtain and retain contracts with mobile phone carriers, content providers, advertisers and other customers, which could materially adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition and business. 

Our business is subject to the risks of hurricanes, floods, fires and other natural catastrophic events and to interruption by man-made problems such as computer viruses or terrorism. 

Our systems and operations are vulnerable to damage or interruption from hurricanes, floods, fires, power losses, telecommunications outages, terrorist attacks, acts of war, human errors, break-ins and similar events. Our U.S. corporate offices are located in Miami, Florida, which is an area that is at high risk of hurricane and flood damage. In addition, acts of terrorism, which may be targeted at metropolitan areas that have higher population density than rural areas, could cause disruptions in our business or the economy as a whole. The servers that we use through various third party service providers are not located in Miami, Florida but may also be vulnerable to computer viruses, break-ins and similar disruptions from unauthorized tampering with our computer systems, which could lead to interruptions, delays, loss of critical data or the unauthorized disclosure of confidential information. Such service providers may not have sufficient protection or recovery plans in certain circumstances, and our insurance may not be sufficient to compensate us for losses that may occur. As we rely heavily on our servers, computer and communications systems and the Internet to conduct our business, such disruptions could negatively impact our ability to run our business and either directly or indirectly disrupt our customers’ respective businesses, which could have an adverse effect on our business prospects, operating results and financial condition.

We incur increased costs as a result of being a public company. 

As a public company, we currently incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses not incurred by private companies. It may be time consuming, difficult and costly for us to develop, implement and maintain the additional internal controls, processes and reporting procedures required by federal statutes, SEC rules, other government regulations affecting public companies and/or stock exchange compliance requirements. We may need to hire additional financial reporting, internal auditing and other finance staff in order to develop, implement and maintain appropriate internal controls, processes and reporting procedures, which will increase our expenses and adversely affect our operating results and financial condition. 

We are the subject of various legal proceedings which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or operating results. 

We are involved in various litigation matters. We may, from time to time, also be involved in or be the subject of governmental or regulatory agency inquiries or investigations. If we are unsuccessful in our defense in the litigation matters, or any other legal proceeding, we may be forced to pay damages or fines and/or change our business practices, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. For more information about our legal proceedings, see “Legal Proceedings” in Part I, Item 3 of this Report.  

Our merchants may be unable to satisfy obligations for which we may also be liable.

We are subject to the risk of our merchants being unable to satisfy obligations for which we may also be liable. For example, we and our merchant acquiring alliances may be subject to contingent liability for transactions originally acquired by us that are disputed by the cardholder and charged back to the merchants. If we or the alliance is unable to collect this amount from the merchant because of the merchant’s insolvency or other reasons, we or the alliance will bear the loss for the amount of the refund paid to the cardholder. We have an active program to manage our credit risk and often mitigate our risk by obtaining collateral. It is possible, however, that a default on such obligations by one or more of our merchants could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Fraud by merchants or others could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

We may be subject to potential liability for fraudulent electronic payment transactions or credits initiated by merchants or others. Examples of merchant fraud include when a merchant or other party knowingly uses a stolen or counterfeit credit, debit or prepaid card, card number, or other credentials to record a false sales transaction, processes an invalid card, or intentionally fails to deliver the merchandise or services sold in an otherwise valid transaction. Criminals are using increasingly sophisticated methods to engage in illegal activities such as counterfeiting and fraud. It is possible that incidents of fraud could increase in the future. Failure to effectively manage risk and prevent fraud would increase our chargeback liability or other liability. Increases in chargebacks or other liability could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Risks Related to Our Common Stock

Kenges Rakishev, the Chairman of our Board of Directors, owns a large portion of the Company’s common stock. Future sales or distributions of the Company’s common stock in the public market by the Company or Mr. Rakishev could adversely affect the trading price of the Company’s common stock.

At March 30, 2017, Kenges Rakishev, the Chairman of our Board of Directors, beneficially owned approximately 18% of the Company’s common stock. Sales or distributions of a substantial number of shares of the Company’s common stock by Mr. Rakishev in the public market, or the perception that these sales or distributions might occur, may cause the market price of the Company’s common stock to decline.

In addition, we may sell equity securities in the future to obtain funds for general corporate, working capital, acquisitions or other purposes. We may sell these securities at a discount to the then market price. Any future sales of equity securities will dilute the holdings of existing stockholders, possibly reducing the value of their investment.

The market price and trading volume of our common stock may be volatile, which could result in rapid and substantial losses for our stockholders.

You should consider an investment in our common stock to be risky, and you should invest in our common stock only if you can withstand a significant loss and wide fluctuations in the market value of your investment. Many factors could cause the market price of our common stock to rise and fall, including the following:

In addition, if the market for stocks in our industry, or the stock market in general, experiences a loss of investor confidence, the trading price of our common stock could decline for reasons unrelated to our business, financial condition or results of operations. If any of the foregoing occurs, it could cause our stock price to fall and may expose us to lawsuits that, even if successfully defended, could be costly to defend and a distraction to management.

Our Common Stock may be delisted from The NASDAQ Capital Market, which could affect its market price and liquidity. 

We are required to continually meet the listing requirements of The NASDAQ Capital Market (including a minimum bid price for our common stock of $1.00 per share) to maintain the listing of our common stock on The NASDAQ Capital Market. On November 14, 2016, the bid price of our common stock fell below $1.00 and stayed below $1.00 for 30 consecutive business days. On December 28, 2016, we received a letter from NASDAQ providing us 180 days (until June 26, 2017) to regain compliance. To regain compliance, our stock closing bid price must remain above $1.00 for 10 consecutive trading days. If we do not regain compliance with the minimum closing bid price requirement, the NASDAQ Capital Market will provide written notice that our securities are subject to delisting. At such time, we would be entitled to appeal the delisting determination to a NASDAQ Listing Qualifications Panel. We cannot provide any assurance that our stock price will recover within the permitted grace period.

Any delisting of our common stock from The NASDAQ Capital Market could adversely affect our ability to attract new investors, reduce the liquidity of our outstanding shares of common stock, reduce our flexibility to raise additional capital, reduce the price at which our common stock trades and increase the transaction costs inherent in trading such shares with overall negative effects for our stockholders. In addition, delisting of our common stock could deter broker-dealers from making a market in or otherwise seeking or generating interest in our common stock, and might deter certain institutions and persons from investing in our securities at all. For these reasons and others, delisting could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Item 1B.  Unresolved Staff Comments.

Not applicable.

Item 2.  Properties.

On May 10, 2013, we entered into a lease agreement, which is dated as of May 1, 2013, for approximately 4,716 square feet of office space located at 3363 N.E. 163rd Street, Suites 705 through 707, North Miami Beach, Florida 33160. The term of the lease agreement was from May 1, 2013 through December 31, 2016, with monthly rent increasing from $16,800 per month at inception to $19,448 per month (or $233,377 per year) for the period from January 1, 2016 through December 31, 2016.

On September 12, 2016, this lease was extended for a period of five years commencing January 1, 2017 and expiring December 31, 2021 with monthly base rent increasing each year from 20,421 per month beginning January 1, 2017 ($245,046 per year) to 24,821 per month beginning January 1, 2021 ($297,855 per year). The extension has an early termination provision that allows us to cancel the lease with no cancellation fee if we enter into a new lease agreement with Canal Park Office, LLC. We are currently negotiating with Canal Park Office, LLC for larger space.

NetLabs Systems, LLC, through its Russian representative office, currently leases 1,654 square feet of office space in Yekaterinburg, Russia, where it conducts certain services and sales central CRM development activities, at annual rent of approximately $24,300.  The current lease term expires on June 1, 2017.

PayOnline Systems leases approximately 5,090 square feet of office space in Moscow, Russia at an annual rent of $141,867. The current lease term for the office space expires on July 15, 2017. PayOnline leases approximately 276 square feet of office space in Ekaterinburg, Russia at annual rent of $3,328. As a second regional office, PayOnline leases approximately 155 square feet of office space in Almaty, Russia at annual rent of $1,340. The leases are automatically renewable.

Net Element Russia leases approximately 2,033 square feet of office space in Moscow, Russia at annual rent of $73,960, as well as one corporate apartment at annual rent of $22,600. The current lease term for the office space expires on January 31, 2018 and we expect to renew this lease at that time. The current lease term for the corporate apartment expires on August 16, 2017.

We believe that our facilities are suitable and adequate for our present purposes, and we anticipate that we will be able to extend our existing leases on terms satisfactory to us or, if necessary, to locate substitute facilities on acceptable terms.

Item 3.  Legal Proceedings.

Litigation

Aptito.com, Inc.

On August 6, 2014, our subsidiary (Aptito, LLC) filed a lawsuit against Aptito.com, Inc. and the shareholders of Aptito.com, Inc., in state court in the 11th Judicial Circuit in and for Miami-Dade County. This is an interpleader action in regards to 125,000 shares of stock. Aptito, LLC acquired Aptito.com, Inc. in exchange for, among other things, 125,000 shares of Net Element, Inc. stock. There has been disagreement among the Aptito.com, Inc. shareholders as to proper distribution of the 125,000 shares. To avoid any liability in regards to improper distribution, Aptito, LLC filed the interpleader action so as to allow the defendants to litigate amongst themselves as to how the shares should be distributed. Aptito.com, Inc. opposes the motion to interplead and has filed counterclaims relative to Aptito, LLC non-delivery of the 125,000 shares.  On February 10, 2017, the Court held a hearing on Aptito.com, Inc.’s motion to dismiss the complaint and Aptito, LLC and Net Element’s motion to dismiss Aptito.com, Inc.’s counterclaims.  The Court denied Aptito.com, Inc.’s motion to dismiss and granted Aptito, LLC and Net Element’s motion to dismiss the counterclaims without prejudice.  The Court also indicated that it will soon hold a hearing on the motion to interplead.  If the motion to interplead is granted, it will be up to the defendants to litigate as to the proper distribution of shares and Aptito, LLC should be discharged from any purported liability.    On March 21, 2017, Aptito.com, Inc. filed several counterclaims against Aptito, LLC and us, which we are disputing and will defend.

Gene Zell

In June 2014, we, as plaintiff, commenced an action in the Miami-Dade Circuit Court, Florida against Gene Zell for defamation of our Company and CEO and tortious interference with our business relationships. In October 2014, the court granted a temporary injunction against Zell enjoining him from posting any information about our Company and CEO on any website and enjoining him from contacting our business partners or investors. Zell violated the Court Order and the Court granted a Motion imposing sanctions against Zell. We continue to seek enforcement of the Court Order. On April 13, 2015, Zell filed a Motion to set aside the Court Order alleging he was unaware of the Court Proceedings. The Court, on August 26, 2015, dismissed Zell’s Motion to dissolve the injunction and the injunction order prohibiting Zell from making further defamatory posts remains in place.  We intend to protect our rights by ongoing enforcement of the Injunction.

Other Legal Proceedings

We are involved in certain legal proceedings and claims which arise in the ordinary course of business. In our opinion, based on consultations with outside counsel, the results of any of these ordinary course matters, individually and in the aggregate, are not expected to have a material effect on our results of operations, financial condition, or cash flows. As more information becomes available, if management should determine that an unfavorable outcome is probable on such a claim and that the amount of such probable loss that it will incur on that claim is reasonably estimable, we will record a reserve for the claim in question. If and when we record such a reserve is recorded, it could be material and could adversely impact our results of operations, financial condition, and cash flows. 

Item 4.  Mine Safety Disclosures.

Not applicable.

PART II

Item 5.  Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities.

Market Information

Our common stock began trading on The NASDAQ Capital Market under the symbol “NETE” on October 3, 2012. From October 22, 2010 through October 2, 2012, our ordinary shares (then known as Cazador Acquisition Corporation Ltd.) traded on The NASDAQ Capital Market under the symbol “CAZA.” For the periods indicated, the following table sets forth the high and low intraday sales prices per share of our common equity.

Holders

As of December 31, 2016, our common stock was held by approximately 348 stockholders of record. The number of record holders was determined from the records of our transfer agent and does not include beneficial owners of common stock whose shares are held in the names of various securities brokers, dealers and registered clearing agencies. Our transfer agent is Continental Stock Transfer & Trust Company.

Dividends

We have not declared any dividends during the two most recent fiscal years. We have no present intention of paying any cash dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future, as any earnings will be used to help generate growth. The decision on the payment of dividends in the future rests within the discretion of the Board of Directors and will depend upon, among other things, our earnings, capital requirements and financial condition, as well as other relevant factors. There are no restrictions in our certificate of incorporation or bylaws that restrict us from declaring dividends.

Securities Authorized for Issuance Under Equity Compensation Plans 

The information included under Item 12 of Part III of this Report is hereby incorporated by reference into this Item 5 of Part II of this Report.

Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities 

None.

Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

None.

Item 6.  Selected Financial Data.

Not Applicable.

Item 7.  Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.

The following discussion should be read in conjunction with the Consolidated Financial Statements and Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements contained in this Report and the discussion under “Forward-Looking Statements” on page 2 at the beginning of this Report and the Risk Factors set forth in Part I, Item 1A of this Report.

Overview

Net Element is a global financial technology and value-added solutions group that supports companies in accepting electronic payments in an omni-channel environment that spans across point-of-sale (“POS”), e-commerce and mobile devices. We operate in three reportable business operating segments: (i) North America Transaction Solutions, (ii) Mobile Solutions, and (iii) Online Solutions. For additional information about our business segments, see “Business Segments” under Part I, Item 1 of this Report.

We enable merchants of all sizes to accept and process over 100 different payment options in more than 40 currencies, including credit, debit and prepaid payments. We also provide merchants with value-added services and technologies including integrated payment technologies, POS solutions, security solutions, fraud management, information solutions and analytical tools.

Total transactions processed during 2016 were 187 million compared to 161 million for 2015. The increase in transactions processed came primarily from our North America Transactions Solutions segment, which saw a 70% increase from 51.5 million in 2015 to 87.5 million transactions in 2016. Our Online Solutions segment experienced a 36% increase from 19.5 million in 2015 to 26.5 million transactions in 2016, while our Mobile Solutions segment processed 73.3 million in 2016 compared to 90 million transactions in 2015, which represented a 19% decrease. Growth in the North America Transactions Solutions and Online Solutions segments was organic.

Total transaction dollars processed during 2016 was $2.45 billion compared to $1.75 billion for 2015. The increase in transaction dollars processed came primarily from our North America Transactions Solutions segment, which saw a 60% increase from $1.0 billion in 2015 to $1.6 billion processed in 2016. Our Online Solutions segment experienced a 24% increase from $333 million in 2015 to $412 million processed in 2016, while our Mobile Solutions processed $36 million in transactions for 2016 compared to $90 million in 2015, which represented a 60% decrease. Growth in the North America Transactions Solutions and Online Solutions segments was organic.

Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates

Our significant accounting policies are described more fully in Note 1 of the accompanying Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements. The preparation of financial statements in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the financial statements, as well as the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the reporting period. Actual results could differ materially from those estimates.

In applying estimates, management uses its judgment to determine the appropriate assumptions to be used in the determination of certain estimates. Those estimates are based on our historical experience, terms of existing contracts, the observance of trends in our industries, information provided by outside sources, trade journals and other sources, as appropriate.

Revenue. We recognize revenue when the following four basic criteria have been met: (1) persuasive evidence of a sales arrangement exists; (2) performance of services has occurred, (3) the sales price is fixed or determinable, and (4) collectability is reasonably assured. We consider persuasive evidence of a merchant processing sales arrangement to be the receipt of a billable transaction from aggregators or a signed contract.

Revenue for access to branded content is recognized monthly as the mobile subscribers purchase access to content. Service fee revenue from the Aptito SaaS fees is recognized when billed unless collectability is considered an issue.

Collectability is assessed based on a number of factors, including transaction history with the customer and the credit worthiness of the customer. If it is determined that the collection is not reasonably assured, revenue is not recognized until collection becomes reasonably assured, which is generally upon receipt of cash. We record cash received in advance of revenue recognition as deferred revenue.

Reserve for Loan Losses. We monitor all accounts receivable, notes receivable and transactions with mobile operators and aggregators on a quarterly basis to ensure collectability and the adequacy of loss provisions. Considerations include payment history, business volume history, financial statements of borrower, projections of borrower and other standard credit review documentation. Management uses its best judgment to adequately reserve for future losses after all available information is reviewed. During 2016 and 2015, Digital Provider recovered approximately $0.1 million of advances previously reserved.  

During 2016 and 2015, we recognized $1,274,671 and $754,162 for net ACH rejects that occurred in the normal course of business.

Deferred Taxes. Estimates of deferred income taxes and items giving rise to deferred tax assets and liabilities reflect management’s assessment of actual future taxes to be paid on items reflected in the financial statements, giving consideration to both timing and the probability of their realization. Actual income taxes could vary from these estimates for a variety of reasons, including changes in tax law, operating results that vary from budget or the review of our tax returns by the IRS.

Results of Operations for the Year Ended December 31, 2016 Compared to the Year Ended December 31, 2015

We reported a net loss attributable to common stockholders of $13,487,537 or ($1.03) per share for the year ended December 31, 2016 as compared to a net loss of $14,838,704 or ($2.32) per share for the year ended December 31, 2015. Our net loss from operations for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 primarily resulted from our non-cash compensation, depreciation and amortization, and general and administrative expenses, as discussed further below.

The following table sets forth our sources of revenues, cost of revenues and gross margins for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015.

Gross Margin Analysis

Net revenues consist primarily of service fees from transaction processing. Net revenues were $54,286,859 for the year ended December 31, 2016 as compared to $40,235,362 for the year ended December 31, 2015. The increase in net revenues is primarily due to organic growth of merchants in our North America Transaction Solutions segment. This was partially offset by a $3,110,424 decrease primarily from our Mobile Solutions branded content. We acquired and began consolidating revenues from our Online Solutions segment, consisting of PayOnline, which was acquired in May of 2015. Additionally, we began generating revenues for branded content in our Mobile Solutions segment during the quarter ending September 30, 2015. Branded content revenues are presented gross versus net fees recorded for all other business. Branded content amounted to $5,502,004 and $9,030,491 for the twelve months ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 respectively. The Mobile Solutions non-branded content was $431,277 and $13,214 for the twelve months ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 respectively and reported in service fees.

Cost of revenues represents direct costs of generating revenues, including commissions, mobile operator fees, purchases of short numbers, interchange expense and processing fees. Cost of revenues for the twelve months ended December 31, 2016 were $45,708,241 as compared to $33,977,215 for the twelve months ended December 31, 2015. The year over year increase in cost of revenues of $11,731,026 was because of a $12,844,657 increase, directly due to continued increased North America Transaction Solutions volume. There was also a $1,723,172 increase in cost of revenues resulting from Online Solutions segment (PayOnline) operations (acquired May 20, 2015). This was offset by a $2,836,803 decrease in Mobile Solutions costs of revenues. Cost of revenues for Mobile Solutions branded content costs amounted to $5,187,005 and $8,119,117 for the twelve months ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 respectively. The Mobile Solutions non-branded content costs were $100,955 and $5,646 for the twelve months ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively and reported in cost of service fees.

Gross Margin for the twelve months ended December 31, 2016 was $8,578,618, or 16% of net revenue, as compared to $6,258,147, or 16% of net revenue, for the twelve months ended December 31, 2015. The primary reasons margin percentages stayed the same was an increase in net revenue from our North American Transaction Solutions and Online Solutions segments. This was offset by a $273,621 decrease in Mobile Solutions net revenues. Mobile Solutions branded content gross margin amounted to $314,999 (6%) and $911,374 (10%) for the twelve months ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 respectively. The Mobile Solutions non-branded content gross margins were $330,322 (77%) and $7,568 (58%) for the twelve months ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 respectively.

Total operating expenses were $17,416,066 for the year ended December 31, 2016, as compared to total operating expenses of $16,779,514 for the year ended December 31, 2015. Total operating expenses for the year ended December 31, 2016 consisted of general and administrative expenses of, $8,797,883, non-cash compensation of $3,463,435, a bad debt provision of $1,688,237 and depreciation and amortization of $3,466,511. For the year ended December 31, 2015, operating expenses consisted of general and administrative expenses of $9,310,477, non-cash compensation of $4,306,304, a bad debt provision of $649,571, and depreciation and amortization of $2,513,162.

The components of our general and administrative expenses are discussed below.

General and administrative expenses for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 consisted of operating expenses not otherwise delineated in our Consolidated Statements of Operations and Comprehensive Loss, including non-cash compensation expense, salaries and benefits, professional fees, rent, filing fees and other expenses required to run our business, as follows:

Salaries, benefits, taxes and contractor payments were $4,402,689 for the year ended December 31, 2016 as compared to $3,816,241 for the year ended December 31, 2015, representing an increase of $586,448 as follows:

The increase in salaries of $586,448 was due primarily to the increase of corporate salaries of $398,100 due to an increase in North America Transactions Solutions’ headcount and sales incentives given to our key segment managers. Also, $304,220 of our Online Solutions segment salaries increased due to the May 20, 2015 acquisition and consolidation of PayOnline expenses were for a partial year in 2015.

Professional fees were $2,714,840 for the year ended December 31, 2016 as compared to $3,563,885 for the year ended December 31, 2015, representing a decrease of $849,045 as follows:

The most significant decreases in professional fees were attributable to general legal of $389,035, accounting/auditing fees of $206,789 and consulting services of $237,997. The primary reason for a $389,035 decrease in general legal expenses was due to less litigation activity in our corporate expenses during the year ended December 31, 2016 versus the year ended December 31, 2015. Corporate accounting fees decreased $121,669, due to PayOnline’s acquisition which required additional accounting costs in 2015 related to its valuation and separate financial statement audit prior to purchase. Online Solutions’ accounting fees also decreased $76,371 during 2016 because the PayOnline required increased accounting costs for its purchase in May 20, 2015 to prepare for its annual audit and to provide accurate financials for its valuation. Consulting fees decreased $237,997 primarily resulting from a corporate decrease of $481,401. This decrease occurred because of a transition of consultants into permanent positions as well as decreased investor relations costs and valuation fees. This was primarily offset by Online Solutions consulting costs which increased $181,479 as result of PayOnline’s being consolidated for a full year in 2016 versus 2015’s consolidation being effective May 20, 2015.

Transaction gains and losses represent changes in exchange rates between our functional currency and the foreign currency in which the transaction is denominated.

Other general and administrative expenses were $1,246,924 for the year ended December 31, 2016 as compared to $999,965 for the year ended December 31, 2015, representing an increase of $246,959. The differences consisted primarily of an $83,131 increase in office expenses, $64,805 increase in communications, a $42,409 increase in insurance, and a $31,921 increase in taxes. The increase in office expenses was attributed to North America Transaction Solutions ($44,294) and Online Solutions ($41,297). The increase to communications was primarily due to Online Solutions ($65,555), and corporate expenses ($41,502), offset by a decrease in North America Transaction Solutions ($20,573) and a decrease in Mobile Solutions ($21,678). The increase in insurance was due to our corporate, primarily as a result of our Directors and Officers policy. The increase in taxes was primarily due to an increase in corporate ($206,157), which primarily due to an $180,000 franchise tax for the State of Delaware, offset by a $166,926 decrease in Mobile Solutions taxes.

Non-cash compensation expense was $3,463,435 for the year ended December 31, 2016 as compared to 4,306,304 for the year ended December 31, 2015. A summary of 2016 and 2015 non-cash compensation activity was as follows:

We recorded a provision for bad debt in the amount of $1,688,237 for the year ended December 31, 2016, compared to provision for bad debts of $649,571 for the year ended December 31, 2015. For the twelve months ended December 31, 2016 we recorded a loss provision which was primarily comprised of $1,274,671 in net ACH rejects, attributable to the normal course of our North America Transaction Solutions segment, and a $413,565 loss, which was primarily to reserve for potential accounts receivable losses from our Mobile Solutions business. For the twelve months ended December 31, 2015 we recorded a loss provision which was primarily comprised of $754,162 in ACH rejects, attributable to the normal course of our North America Transaction Solutions segment, offset by $100,868 bad debt recovery from our Mobile Solutions segment.

During the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, we did not recognize any goodwill impairment.

Depreciation and amortization expense consists primarily of the amortization of merchant portfolios, trademarks and domain names plus depreciation expense on fixed assets, client acquisition costs, capitalized software expenses and employee non-compete agreements. 

Depreciation and amortization expense was $3,466,511 for the year ended December 31, 2016 as compared to $2,513,162 for the year ended December 31, 2015. The primary reason for the $953,349 increase is an $834,395 increase attributed to Online Solutions segment, primarily because we took a full year’s depreciation as we purchased PayOnline in May 2015. In addition, we had a $313,191 increase in North American Transaction Solutions due to increased customer acquisition costs, offset by $138,621 decrease because many of our merchant portfolios became fully amortized in 2015.

Interest expense was $1,463,833 for the year ended December 31, 2016 as compared to $3,575,698 for the year ended December 31, 2015, representing a decrease of $2,111,865 as follows:

Interest for 2016 was primarily attributed to RBL Notes. Of the $1,282,439 in interest attributable to the RBL Notes, $789,357 was attributed to discounts on common stock provided in exchange for debt, as compared the market value on the day of issuance. In addition, $40,479 resulted from the amortization of related loan costs and $452,609 resulted from the payment of interest on the notes. Other interest consisted primarily of $125,887 due to a third party as a result of delayed payment installments on the PayOnline stock price guarantee obligation, offset by interest earned by our Mobile Solutions segment.

Interest for 2015 was primarily attributed to corporate of which $3,027,354 was due to the accretion of interest on the debt discounts attributed to the Convertible notes payable that were extinguished during the fourth quarter of 2015. Additionally, $513,994 was for our RBL Notes.

During 2016, we recorded a $3,722,142 loss from stock value guarantee and other charges from PayOnline acquisition, related to Online Solutions segment. This loss includes a stock price guarantee charge in the amount of $2,288,667, due to a make-whole provision arising from a decrease in the stock value purchase consideration paid and a reserve for merchant liabilities assumed in the amount of $1,433,475 pursuant to an amendment to the PayOnline acquisition agreement. Included in other income was a gain of $450,000, from the transfer and settlement of merchant reserves.

During 2015, we recorded a loss on the change in fair value on the beneficial conversion derivative related to convertible preferred stock and the related note payable in the amount of $26,932,496. During the fourth quarter, we extinguished the note payable and convertible preferred stock and recognized a $27,743,980 gain on these extinguishments which were attributable to our corporate expenses. 

There was no intangible asset impairment during 2016 and 2015.

The net income attributable to non-controlling interests amounted to $128,539 and $74,314 for 2016 and 2015, respectively. The income was attributed to our North America Transaction Solutions segment represents 10% non-controlling interest in Aptito. The non-controlling interest reflects the results of operations of subsidiaries that are allocable to minority equity owners.

Since our inception, we have incurred significant operating losses. We incurred net losses totaling $13.6 million and $13.3 million for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively. We had a working capital deficit of approximately $6.3 million and an accumulated deficit of $157 million at December 31, 2016. These conditions raise substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern. The independent auditors’ report on our consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2016 contains an explanatory paragraph expressing substantial doubt as to our ability to continue as a going concern. The accompanying consolidated financial statements do not include any adjustments that might be necessary if we are unable to continue as a going concern. See also “Liquidity and Capital Resources” below.

Liquidity and Capital Resources

Our total assets at December 31, 2016 were $23.3 million compared to $22.9 million at December 31, 2015. The year over year change in total assets is primarily attributable to the $0.9 million increase in our North America Transaction Solutions receivables, and a $0.4 million increase in mobile services receivables, partially offset by a decrease in our intangibles of $1.3 million primarily from amortization through the year ended December 31, 2016 compared to the year ended December 31, 2015.

At December 31, 2016, we had total current assets of $9.2 million including $0.6 million of cash, $7.1 million of accounts receivable, and $1.5 million of prepaid expenses and other assets. At December 31, 2015, we had total current assets of $7.3 million including $1.0 million of cash, $5.2 million of accounts receivable, and $1.1 million of prepaid expenses and other assets.

As of the filing date of this Report with the SEC, management expects that our cash flows from operations will not be sufficient to fund our current operations through 2017. We will require additional capital in order to continue our existing business operations and to fund our obligations.

We currently believe that we will require an additional $4.8 million to finance our continuing operations over the next 12 months. We also are obligated to make a $1.8 million payment in May 2017 relating to our obligations under the PayOnline acquisition. We may raise additional funds through debt financing and/or the issuance of equity securities, there being no assurance that any type of financing on terms satisfactory to us will be available or otherwise occur. Debt financing must be repaid regardless of whether we generate revenues or cash flows from operations and may be secured by substantially all of our assets. Any equity financing or debt financing that requires the issuance of equity securities or warrants to the lender would cause the percentage ownership by our current stockholders to be diluted, which dilution may be substantial. Also, any additional equity securities issued may have rights, preferences or privileges senior to those of existing stockholders. If such financings are not available when required or are not available on acceptable terms, we may be unable to implement our business plans or take advantage of business opportunities, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and/or prospects and may ultimately require us to suspend or cease operations, which could cause investors to lose the entire amount of their investment.

Operating activities used $3.3 million of cash for the twelve months ended December 31, 2016 as compared to using $1.7 million of cash for the twelve months ended December 31, 2015. Negative operating cash flow for the twelve months ended December 31, 2016 was primarily due to a $13.5 million loss, adjusted for non-cash expenses and working capital items.

Investing activities used $1.5 million of cash for the year ended December 31, 2016 as compared to using $4.4 million of cash for the year ended December 31, 2015. The decrease in cash used by investing activities for the year ended December 31, 2016 was primarily attributable to the $3.2 million of cash to purchase PayOnline in 2015, partially offset by a $0.4 million increase in portfolio and client acquisition costs in our North America Transaction Solutions segment during 2016.

For the year ended December 31, 2016, financing activities provided cash of $4.4 million, primarily from $3.2 million from proceeds from indebtedness during the year ending December 31, 2016, $0.3 million in cash paid for stock and warrants and $1 million from related party advances from our CEO and board member.

For the year ended December 31, 2015, financing activities provided $6.5 million dollars, primarily from $5.5 million in the issuance of preferred stock, later converted to common stock during the year ending December 31, 2015, $0.7 million from proceeds from issuance of notes payable to RBL and $0.3 million in related party loans from our CEO. 

Effective June 30, 2014, TOT Group, Inc. and its subsidiaries as co-borrowers, TOT Payments, LLC, TOT BPS, LLC, TOT FBS, LLC, Process Pink, LLC, TOT HPS, LLC and TOT New Edge, LLC, entered into a Loan and Security Agreement with RBL Capital Group, LLC (“RBL”), as lender (the “RBL Loan Agreement”). Pursuant to the RBL Loan Agreement, we may borrow up to $10,000,000 from RBL during the period of 18 months from the closing of this credit facility. Prior to maturity of the loan, the principal amount of the borrowings under the credit facility will carry a fixed interest rate of the higher of 13.90% per annum or the prime rate plus 10.65%. After maturity of the loan, until all borrowings are paid in full, with respect to the advances under the credit facility, an additional three percent per annum would be added to such interest rate, and for any other amounts, obligations or payments due to RBL, an annual default rate not to exceed the lesser of (i) the prime rate plus 13% per annum and (ii) 18.635% per annum. Borrowings from the line of credit in the amounts of $3,315,000, $400,000 and $250,000 were converted into term loans. At December 31, 2016 and 2015 we had $10,955,944 and $6,035,000 available on our RBL credit line. On May 2, 2016, we renewed our credit facility with RBL, increasing the facility from $10 million to $15 million, and extended the term through February 2018. 

On May 2, 2016, we entered into a Master Exchange Agreement with Crede CG III, Ltd (“Crede”), an entity that purchased a portion our previously issued notes held by RBL. Pursuit to the Master Exchange Agreement, we have the right to direct Crede to exchange up to $3,965,000 of the RBL promissory notes acquired for shares of our common stock.

Effective December 20, 2016, we entered into a $4,044,055 term note with RBL. This note effectively refinanced certain previously issued RBL notes. The term note provides for interest-only payments at 14.15% through May 20, 2017 in the amount of $47,686. From June 20, 2021 through May 20, 2021, we are obligated to make monthly interest and principal payments of $110,814. The promissory note also provides for a $20,000 front end refinancing fee, due upon the execution of the loan and a $104,600 back end fee due at the final payment on May 20, 2021. 

Effective March 28, 2016, we entered into a $75,000 term loan note with MBF Merchant Capital, LLC (“MBF”). The loan provides for interest-only payments at 14% through May 28, 2016. From June 28, 2016 through March 28, 2017, we are obligated to make monthly interest and principal payments of $7,990. The loan also provides for a 6% back end fee due at the final payment of the loan. As of December 31, 2016, the balance of the note was $23,420.

Effective April 19, 2016, we entered into a $300,000 promissory loan note with MBF. The loan provides for interest-only payments at 15.5% through May 28, 2016. From June 28, 2016 through May 28, 2018, we are obligated to make monthly interest and principal payments of $14,617. The loan also provides for a 6% back end fee due at the final payment of the loan. As of December 31, 2016, the balance of the note was $221,826.

Effective July 1, 2016, our subsidiary, TOT Group, Inc., entered into a $353,500 promissory loan note with MBF. The loan provides for interest-only payments at 15.5% through June 28, 2016. From July 28, 2016 through June 28, 2018, we are obligated to make monthly interest and principal payments of $17,224. The loan also provides for a 1% front end fee and a 6.6% back end fee due at the final payment of the loan. As of December 31, 2016, the remaining balance of the note was $275,056.

Off-balance sheet arrangements

At December 31, 2016, we did not have any off-balance sheet arrangements as defined in Item 303(a) (4) of Regulation S-K.

Recently Issued Accounting Pronouncements

In May 2014, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) issued Accounting Standard Update (“ASU”) 2014-09, “Revenue from Contracts with Customers,” which supersedes the revenue recognition requirements in Topic 605, “Revenue Recognition” and requires entities to recognize revenue in a way that depicts the transfer of promised goods or services to customers in an amount that reflects the consideration to which the entity expects to be entitled in exchange for those goods or services. In August 2015, the FASB issued ASU 2015-14, which defers by one year the effective date of ASU 2014-09. Accordingly, this guidance is effective for interim and annual periods beginning after December 15, 2017 with early adoption permitted for interim and annual periods beginning after December 15, 2016. We are evaluating the effects that the adoption of ASU 2014-9 will have on our consolidated financial statements, and do not expect a material impact on our financial position, results of operations or cash flows.

In November 2015, the FASB issued ASU No. 2015-17, “Balance Sheet Classification of Deferred Taxes,” which requires entities to present deferred tax assets and deferred tax liabilities as noncurrent in a classified balance sheet. As a result, each jurisdiction will now only have one net noncurrent deferred tax asset or liability. This ASU is effective for annual reporting periods beginning after December 15, 2016, including interim periods within that reporting period, and early adoption is permitted. We adopted this ASU, which had no impact on our financial position, results of operations or cash flows.

In February 2016, the FASB issued ASU 2016-02, “Leases” which, for operating leases, requires a lessee to recognize a right-of-use asset and a lease liability, initially measured at the present value of the lease payments, in its balance sheet. The standard also requires a lessee to recognize a single lease cost, calculated so that the cost of the lease is allocated over the lease term, on a generally straight-line basis. The ASU is effective for public companies for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2018, including interim periods within those fiscal years. Early adoption is permitted. We are currently evaluating the effects that the adoption of ASU 2016-02 will have on our consolidated financial statements, and expect an increase in Assets and Liabilities associated with the recognition of right-of-use office leases.

In March 2016, the FASB issued Accounting Standards Update 2016-08 Revenue from Contracts with Customers (Topic 606) to clarify implementation guidance on principal versus agent considerations (for reporting revenue on a gross or net basis). The ASU is an amendment to Topic 606, clarifies the implementation guidance, and requires an entity to account for revenue as an agent when another entity controls the specified good or service before that good or service is transferred to the customer. This ASU is effective for annual periods beginning after December 15, 2017. We currently are preparing analyses, across all business lines and customers, to determine the effect of the new revenue recognition standard.  While our study is not yet complete, we believe that a portion of our revenue recognized for branded content in our Mobile Solutions business segment may no longer meet the conditions for gross reporting upon adoption of this ASU in 2018.

Item 7A.  Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk.

Not Applicable.

Item 8.  Financial Statements and Supplementary Data.

The Consolidated Financial Statements and notes thereto and the reports of the independent registered public accounting firm set forth on pages F-2 through F-31 are filed as part of this Report and incorporated herein by reference.

Item 9.  Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure.

None.

Item 9A.  Controls and Procedures.

Our disclosure controls and procedures are designed to provide reasonable assurance that information required to be disclosed in our reports filed or submitted under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the Commission’s rules and forms, and that such information is accumulated and communicated to our management, including our chief executive officer and chief financial officer, as appropriate, to allow for timely decisions regarding required disclosure. In designing and evaluating the disclosure controls and procedures, management recognizes that any controls and procedures, no matter how well designed and operated, can provide only reasonable assurance of achieving the desired control objectives, and management is required to apply its judgment in evaluating the cost-benefit relationship of possible controls and procedures.

As of the end of the period covered by this Report, our management conducted an evaluation, under the supervision and with the participation of our chief executive officer and chief financial officer, of the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Rule 13a-15(e) and Rule 15d-15(e) under the Exchange Act). Based on that evaluation, our chief executive officer and chief financial officer concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective because there are a limited number of personnel employed and we cannot have an adequate segregation of duties, and due to the material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting as discussed below under “Management’s Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting.” Accordingly, management cannot provide reasonable assurance of achieving the desired control objective. Management works to mitigate these risks by being personally involved in all substantive transactions and attempts to obtain verification of transactions and accounting policies and treatments involving our operations, including those overseas. We are in the process of reviewing and, where necessary, modifying controls and procedures throughout the Company, particularly in light of our recent acquisitions and the continued integration of these businesses. We will continue to address deficiencies as resources permit. 

Management’s Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting

Management of the Company is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting (as defined in Rule 13a-15(f) under Exchange Act). Internal control over financial reporting is a process designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Internal control over financial reporting includes those policies and procedures that: (i) pertain to the maintenance of records that in reasonable detail accurately and fairly reflect the transactions and dispositions of the assets of the Company; (ii) provide reasonable assurance that transactions are recorded as necessary to permit preparation of financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, and that receipts and expenditures of the Company are being made only in accordance with authorizations of management and directors of the Company; and (iii) provide reasonable assurance regarding prevention or timely detection of unauthorized acquisition, use or disposition of the Company’s assets that could have a material effect on the financial statements.

We recognize that because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect misstatements. Also, projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies and procedures may deteriorate.

Management of the Company conducted an assessment of the effectiveness of the Company’s internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2016, based on the framework in Internal Control – Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (the “COSO II Framework”). Based on management’s assessment in accordance with the criteria in the COSO Framework, our management concluded that our internal control over financial reporting was not effective as of December 31, 2016.

Management is aware of the following material weaknesses (a material weakness is a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the Company’s annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected and corrected on a timely basis) in the Company’s internal control over financial reporting:  

Control Environment:

Control Activities

Information and Communication

Monitoring

These material weaknesses impede the ability of management to adequately oversee our internal control over financial reporting on a timely basis. Management intends to continue focusing its remediation efforts in the near term on providing best practices training to our audit committee. In addition, we will endeavor to design revised accounting and financial reporting policies and procedures that will help ensure that adequate internal controls over financial reporting are met. Additionally, these revised procedures will be formally documented and procedures will focus on transaction processing, period-end account analyses and additional review and monitoring procedures. We plan to periodically assess the need for additional accounting resources as business develops and resources permit. Management also is committed to taking further action by implementing enhancements or improvements as resources permit. We recognize that, due to the size and global nature of our business, implementation of additional measures may take considerable time.

Notwithstanding the material weaknesses discussed above, our management has concluded that the financial statements included in this Report fairly present in all material respects our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows for the periods presented in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles.

Except as specifically described above in this Item 9A, there was no change in our internal control over financial reporting during our fourth fiscal quarter of 2016 that has materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

Item 9B.  Other Information  

None.

PART III

Item 10. Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance.

The directors and executive officers of the Company and their respective ages, and positions with the Company and certain business experience as of March 30, 2017 are set forth below. There are no family relationships among any of the directors or executive officers.

There are no material legal proceedings to which any director or executive officer of the Company, or any associate of any director or executive officer of the Company, is a party adverse to the Company or any of its subsidiaries or has a material interest adverse to the Company or any of its subsidiaries.

Each of our directors will hold office until our next annual meeting of shareholders at which directors are elected or until his successor is duly elected and qualified. Executive officers serve at the discretion of our Board of Directors.

Oleg Firer, Chief Executive Officer and Director. Mr. Firer has served as Chief Executive Officer and a director of the Company since April 16, 2013. Previously, Mr. Firer served as Executive Chairman of Unified Payments, LLC from January 2011 until its acquisition by the Company’s subsidiary, TOT Group, Inc., on April 16, 2013. From July 2004 until December 2012, Mr. Firer served as President, Chief Executive Officer and Secretary (and from May 2006 until December 2012 as Treasurer and from May 2008 until December 2012 as Chief Financial Officer) of Acies Corporation, a provider of payment processing solutions to small and medium size merchants across the United States. Mr. Firer also served as a director of Acies Corporation from May 2005 until December 2012. Mr. Firer served as the President of GM Merchant Solution, Inc. (from August 2002) and Managing Partner of GMS Worldwide, LLC (from August 2003) until their assets were acquired by Acies Corporation in June 2004. From November 2002 to December 2003, Mr. Firer served as the Chief Operating Officer of Digital Wireless Universe, Inc. From December 2001 to November 2002, Mr. Firer served as the Managing Partner of CELLCELLCELL, LLC. From March 1998 to December 2001, Mr. Firer served as Vice President of SpeedUS Corp. Mr. Firer studied Computer Science at New York Technical College from 1993 to 1995. Mr. Firer currently serves as a member of Star Capital Management, LLC and Star Equities, LLC, Florida-based investment group. In addition, Mr. Firer serves as a board member of InList, RealConnex as well as a member of the Advisory Board of the E2Exchange, the Institute of Entrepreneurs and several non-for-profit organizations. Mr. Firer holds a diplomatic rank of the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador. The Company believes that Mr. Firer’s leadership roles in various payment processing companies make him qualified to serve as a director of the Company.

Steven Wolberg, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary. Mr. Wolberg has been Chief Legal Officer and Secretary of the Company since April 16, 2013. Previously, Mr. Wolberg served in various capacities with Acies Corporation from approximately January 2009 until December 2012, including as a consultant from approximately January 2009 until October 2009, as a director from October 30, 2009 until December 2012 and as Chief Strategy Officer from March 1, 2010 until December 2012. Mr. Wolberg currently operates a solo law practice in Newton, Massachusetts, Attorney Steven Wolberg, which he has operated since January 1997. Mr. Wolberg served as Chief Counsel and Vice President of Corporate Development for Mascot Networks in Cambridge, Massachusetts from January 2000 to September 2001. Since September 1996, Mr. Wolberg has served as president of Oakland Properties, Inc., a real estate development company. From February 1993 to December 1994, Mr. Wolberg served as an attorney in the real estate and corporate divisions of Brown and Rudnick in Boston, Massachusetts. From March 1988 to November 1991, Mr. Wolberg was a partner with the law firm of Jordaan and Wolberg in Johannesburg, South Africa. From January 1986 to February 1988, Mr. Wolberg was employed as an attorney with Goodman and North in Johannesburg, South Africa. Mr. Wolberg also currently owns and serves as the Managing Member of Prime Portfolios, LLC, which holds a private investment portfolio of merchants, receiving payment processing services. Mr. Wolberg received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, his Bachelors of Laws from the University of Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, South Africa, and his Juris Doctorate from the New England School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts. Mr. Wolberg is a member of the Massachusetts Bar Association.

Jonathan New, Chief Financial Officer. Mr. New has been Chief Financial Officer of the Company since October 2, 2012. Mr. New was Chief Financial Officer of the Company’s predecessor, Net Element, from March 10, 2008 until October 2, 2012. From 2001 to 2003, Mr. New was Chief Operating Officer of Ener1, Inc. From 2004 until it was sold in 2006, Mr. New owned and operated Wholesale Salon Furniture Corp.com, which imported and distributed salon equipment. Thereafter, until joining Net Element, Mr. New provided services to public companies on a variety of corporate accounting, reporting and audit related issues. Prior to joining Ener1, Inc. in 2001, Mr. New held finance manager and chief financial officer positions with companies including Häagen-Dazs, Virtacon (a web development company), RAI Credit Corporation (private label credit card company) and Prudential of Florida. Mr. New obtained his BS in Accounting from Florida State University and began his career with Accenture. He is a member of the Florida Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Kenges Rakishev, Director. Mr. Rakishev has been a director of the Company and Chairman of the Company’s Board of Directors since October 2, 2012. Mr. Rakishev served as a director of the Company’s predecessor, Net Element, from April 23, 2012 until October 2, 2012. Mr. Rakishev is one of the Forbes Top 15 wealthiest, most influential and progressive business leaders of the Republic of Kazakhstan with significant investments in banking, finance, insurance, information technology, oil & gas, mining, manufacturing and retail business sectors worldwide. Mr. Rakishev is a large shareholder and member of the board of the largest bank in Kazakhstan, Kazkommertsbank (KASE: KKGB), with over US$250 billion in total assets, large shareholder and Chairman of SAT & Company (KASE: SATC), a diversified industrial holding, among his numerous other investments.Throughout his career, Kenges has served in several notable positions in the public sector including Vice-President of the Union of Chambers of Commerce of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Vice-President of The Boxing Association of Republic of Kazakhstan and Vice-President of the Asian Boxing Confederation. Mr. Rakishev holds a B.A. (Law) from the Kazakh State Law Academy and a B.A. (International Economics) from the Kazakh Economic University. Mr. Rakishev also has an AMP Diploma from Oxford University. We believe that Mr. Rakishev’s international business leadership and relationships, combined with his extensive knowledge and unique perspectives of global business opportunities, qualifies him to serve as a Director of the Company.

William Healy, Director. Mr. Healy is an accomplished financial services industry veteran with more than 24 years of merchant financing and electronic payments industry experience. Since 2006, Mr. Healy has served as the President of Funds4Growth, a leading investment firm focused on financing of payment service providers in the United States. Since launching Funds4Growth, Mr. Healy has successfully structured and financed in excess of $150 million in merchant base loans. Prior to his tenure at Funds4Growth, Mr. Healy founded MBF Leasing, LLC in November of 2003, where he was responsible for strategic planning along with the financial and operational management of MBF Leasing. Prior to that, Mr. Healy spent 13 years with the CIT Group, Inc., where he was the President of CIT’s Lease Finance Group out of Chicago, Illinois, overseeing more than 150 employees involved in over 225,000 leasing transactions, and in excess of $125 million in merchant base financings. Prior to joining CIT, Mr. Healy held several senior level positions with NewCourt Financial, including Chief Operating Officer of the Specialty Finance Division. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame with a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting. We believe that Mr. Healy’s extensive knowledge in the payments industry qualifies him to serve as a director of the Company.

James Caan, Director. Mr. Caan has been a director of the Company since October 2, 2012. Mr. Caan served as a director of the Company’s predecessor, Net Element, from January 1, 2011 until October 2, 2012. Mr. Caan is an actor and director, having worked in the film and television industries for over 40 years, and he is one of the entertainment industry’s most renowned talents, having starred in over 80 films. We believe that Mr. Caan’s tenure working as an actor and director in the film and television industry, qualifies him to serve as a director of the Company.

Drew J. Freeman, Director. Mr. Freeman has been a director of the Company since May 21, 2014. Mr. Freeman is an accomplished industry veteran with more than 30 years of electronic payments industry experience. Since June 2007, Mr. Freeman has served as the President of Freeman Consulting, Inc., a payments consulting firm that works with private equity and ISOs. Concurrent and prior to that, Mr. Freeman served as President of Merchant Data Systems from 2009 to 2013, Group Executive at Chase Paymentech from 2006 to 2007, and Executive Vice President at JP Morgan Chase-First Data JV (Chase Merchant Services) from 2000 to 2006. Mr. Freeman earned a business degree from the University of Miami in 1980. We believe that Mr. Freeman’s extensive knowledge in the payments industry qualifies him to serve as a director of the Company.

Howard Ash, Director.  Mr. Ash has been a director of the Company since June 13, 2016. Mr. Ash is an accomplished executive who served as CEO, COO and CFO to a variety of high profile, international companies.  Mr. Ash currently serves as Chairman of Claridge Management since 2000.  Mr. Ash served as Chief Operating Officer of BioCard Corporation from 1997 to 2007.  Mr. Ash served as Chief Operating Officer of CITA Americas, Inc. from 1996 to 1997.  Mr. Ash served as Chief Executive Officer of IEDC Marketing, Inc. from 1992 to 1996.  Mr. Ash held a CFO/Financial Planning/Investment position at Abrams, Ash & Associates from 1990 to 1992.  Mr. Ash currently serves on the Star Telemed Board, functioning initially as the Liaison to the Cuban Government through the Government of Grenada. Mr. Ash currently serves on the Advisory Board of the E2Exchange, the Institute of Entrepreneurs, in the United Kingdom as the only non-UK citizen.  Mr. Ash continues to serve since 2009 in a senior development and strategic capacity for One Laptop Per Child, a global NGO created to provide educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, internet connected laptop with content and software.  Prior Chairmanships include the 2009 through 2012 term for the Sturge Weber Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to curing this rare but fatal syndrome that affects children. Previously, Mr. Ash was an Advisory Board Member to Edge Global Investment Limited which forged a strategic partnership with the Africa Forum, consisting of 37 former Heads of State and Government to pave the way for a new approach on nutrition and food supplements as part of a comprehensive strategy to fight the HIV and AIDS pandemic.  Mr. Ash started an interest-free micro-loan society in 1987 that has provided more than $15 million in micro-loans throughout the United States and Israel.  In 1999, Mr. Ash founded the Circle of Life Resource Center, Inc., a food bank in Miami, Florida that feeds several hundred families per week.  Mr. Ash earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree, with Honors in Accounting and Law from the University of Witwatersrand (South Africa) in 1980.  We believe that Mr. Ash’s extensive experience as a business and finance executive and member of multiple oversight bodies, provides him with the necessary skills to be qualified to serve as a director of the Company.

Section 16(a) Beneficial Ownership Reporting Compliance

Section 16(a) of the Exchange Act requires our directors and officers and persons who beneficially own more than ten percent of a registered class of our equity securities to file with the Commission initial reports of ownership and reports of change in ownership of common stock and other equity securities of the Company. Directors, officers and greater than ten percent stockholders are required by Commission regulations to furnish us with copies of all Section 16(a) forms they file. To our knowledge, the following persons have failed to file on a timely basis the identified reports required by Section 16(a) of the Exchange Act during the most recent fiscal year:

Code of Ethics

We have adopted a Code of Ethics and Business Conduct that applies to all of our directors, officers and employees, including our principal executive officer and our principal financial and accounting officer. A copy of our Code of Ethics and Business Conduct has been posted to the "Investors—Corporate Governance" section of our Internet website at http://www.netelement.com. We will provide a copy of our Code of Ethics and Business Conduct to any person without charge, upon written request to our Secretary at 3363 NE 163rd Street, Suite 705, North Miami Beach, Florida 33160, fax number (305) 508-5497, e-mail address investors@netelement.com.

Audit Committee

Our Board of Directors has a separately-designated standing audit committee established in accordance with Section 3(a)(58)(A) of the Exchange Act, which is currently comprised of Howard Ash (audit committee chairman), Drew Freeman and William Healy. Our Board of Directors has determined that Howard Ash is financially sophisticated as described in NASDAQ Listing Rule 5605(c)(2) and qualifies as an "audit committee financial expert" as defined in Item 407(d)(5) of Regulation S-K. We believe that the audit committee's current member composition satisfies the rules of NASDAQ that govern audit committee composition, including the requirement that audit committee members all be "independent directors" as that term is defined by NASDAQ Listing Rule 5605(a)(2).

Item 11. Executive Compensation.

Summary Compensation Table

The following table sets forth information for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 with respect to all compensation paid to or earned by each of our “named executive officers” (as defined by Item 402(m)(2) of the Regulation S-K).

(1) An award of 954,172 restricted shares of the Company’s common stock to Oleg Firer (consisting of 579,172 shares in lieu of and in satisfaction of accrued and unpaid compensation due to him in the amount of $1,042,509 and 375,000 shares as performance bonus) was granted on December 3, 2015.

(2) An award of 100,000 restricted shares of the Company’s common stock to Steven Wolberg was granted on December 3, 2015.

(3) Not reflecting a rescission, effective on April 12, 2016 (i.e., subsequent to the fiscal year ended December 31, 2015), of award of 120,000 ISOs (with a fair market value of $216,000 as of the grant date).

Outstanding Equity Awards at Fiscal Year End

The following table sets forth information with respect to outstanding equity awards at the end of the Company’s fiscal year 2016 for the “named executive officers”:

Director Compensation

The following table further summarizes the compensation paid to the Company's directors for service as a director during 2016: