London, January 29, 2013 - ValidSoft (www.validsoft.com), the global supplier of advanced telecommunications-based fraud prevention, authentication and transaction verification solutions, and a wholly owned subsidiary of Elephant Talk Communications Corp. (NYSE MKT:ETAK), was shortlisted for the 'Technology Provider of the Year' award at the 2013 FStech Awards.

The FStech Awards run annually and recognize excellence and innovation in the field of information technology within the UK and EMEA financial services sector. These awards are highly coveted among the UK and EMEA financial technology industry. ValidSoft appears against a number of other prominent industry players including BT and Monitise.

The product that has gained ValidSoft its place in the shortlist is its SMART™ (Secure Mobile Architecture for Real-time Transactions) platform. This is a telecommunications-based, multifactor authentication solution designed to verify and authenticate transactions on mobile devices. The architecture is designed to protect transactions regardless of application type, the mobile device being used and the underlying mobile network technology. SMART can protect transactions for M-banking, mobile wallets and P2P payments, and because of its flexibility, is suitable for both feature and smart-phone technology.

Pat Carroll, CEO of ValidSoft, comments: "As the use of smartphones for banking and paymentsis dramatically increasing, analysts are forecasting that the number of payments using mobile devices is growing at a rate of nearly 53% a year, security is paramount because fraud will certainly draw on the vulnerabilities of this new channel. Telecommunications - and specifically a mobile-based solution - is key to combatting the threat of fraud and ValidSoft is uniquely positioned to bring the power of that sector to the world of security to create innovative solutions. There is a terrific opportunity to shape this new landscape and ValidSoft is pleased to be at the core of this industry shift."

The winners of the FStech Awards will be announced at the Gala Dinner in London on 17 April 2013.

ValidSoft has achieved considerable success with its technology. Besides being shortlisted for the FStech award, ValidSoft was recently the recipient of the prestigious Banking Technology award together with Santander and FICO/Adeptra for the Best Security Initiative for 2012. This award recognizes ValiSoft's SIM Swap technology, the world's first real-time detection and prevention application to tackle the growing problem of SIM Swapping in the banking industry (please refer to http://www.fico.com/en/Company/News/Pages/01-24-2013-Santander-Wins-Banking-Technology-Award-for-SIM-Swapping-Fraud-Solution-Using-FICO-Adeptra-Technology.aspx)

The ability to detect SIM Swapping in real-time is an inherent component of ValidSoft's SMART™ architecture, the world's only indigenous custom designed security architecture for the mobile payments world, which also includes Proximity Correlation and world leading Voice Biometrics capability.

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