SANDPIPER Digital Payments AG announces negotiations with Net Element Inc. on potential business combination.

St. Gallen / Switzerland, November 21^st, 2016: SANDPIPER Digital Payments AG ("SANDPIPER", ISIN: CH0033050961, Ticker: SDP, www.sandpiper.ch), a leading company in Europe for cashless payment systems and services, announces negotiations with Nasdaq-listed Net Element Inc., www.netelement.com ("Net Element") regarding a potential business combination.

The management board of SANDPIPER, being supportive of such a value-adding and synergetic business combination, points out that the implementation of the transaction is still uncertain and dependent on different conditions being met.

Further announcements will be made in due course, if and when circumstances so require.

About SANDPIPER

SANDPIPER Digital Payments AG, www.sandpiper.ch, is a stock-listed technology holding based in St. Gallen, Switzerland. The company is focused on the consolidation of the fragmented payment landscape in Europe by pursuing a "buy & build" strategy in the area of digital cashless payments and access control.

SANDPIPER is already today one of the largest providers of closed-loop payment systems in Europe. SANDPIPER solutions provide safe and intuitive payment technologies based on RFID/NFC and mobile applications for markets such as Retail, Education, Stadium, and Events.

Volker Rofalski, Tel: +41 79 696 27 73, Internet: www.sandpiper.ch

About Net Element

Net Element, Inc. (NASDAQ: NETE) operates a payments-as-a-service transactional and value-added services platform for small to medium enterprise ("SME") in the US and selected emerging markets. In the US, we are growing transactional revenue with innovative services including our cloud based, restaurant point-of-sale solution Aptito. Internationally, Net Element's strategy is to leverage its omni-channel platform to deliver flexible offerings to emerging markets with diverse banking, regulatory and demographic conditions such as UAE, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan where initiatives have been recently launched. Further information is available at www.netelement.com.