Elephant Talk Communications, Inc. Executes Joint Venture with ValidSoft Limited
24 Juni 2009 - 4:18PM
PR Newswire (US)
- Elephant Talk's Joint Venture Products Target Credit Card Fraud
SCHIPHOL, Netherlands, June 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Elephant
Talk Communications, Inc. (OTC:ETAK) (BULLETIN BOARD: ETAK) , an
international telecom and multimedia content distributor,
specializing in carrier grade mobile delivery platforms, today
announced the completion of a Joint Venture agreement with
ValidSoft Limited, a provider of sub-second identity verification,
fraud prevention and false positive reduction for Credit and debit
card ATM and POS (Point of Sale) transactions. The agreement
executed on June 17, 2009, shall remain in place for ten years.
Prominent European banks have completed trials of the product and
have reported that card fraud and false positives were both
virtually eliminated. The joint venture is now in discussions to
deploy its products and services with major financial institutions
located around the world. It is estimated that the total cost of
credit card fraud in the United States in 2008 cost financial
institutions over $50 billion and industry sources estimate the
loss from credit card frauds will triple over the next 3 years.
ValidSoft will use Elephant Talk's international telecommunications
platform to integrate and seamlessly deliver their proprietary
software solutions to protect users from financial fraud, while
offering additional unique product offerings. Each party will be
entitled to a commission from the other party for the generation of
revenues from each others products and services. "ValidSoft's best
in class software, quality relationships with Fortune 500
companies, and experienced management team provides the perfect
complement to Elephant Talk's elite telecommunications network
infrastructure," stated Mr. Steven van der Velden, CEO of Elephant
Talk Communications. "We believe that this joint venture will
assist the users of the joint venture products and services in
reducing credit card fraud and will help banking institutions and
governments lessen the amount of money loss from fraud. Management
expects that this partnership will allow ETAK to offer an
innovative proprietary solution to our rapidly expanding customer
base which will increase our market share and expand our global
footprint." ValidSoft's patented and patent pending software is
based on precisely detecting real time electronic fraud while
minimizing false positives detection and resolving fraudulent
transactions in a fully automated manner whilst protecting the
privacy of the individual. False positives result in the denial of
legitimate transactions which is a leading reason for customer
dissatisfaction with the card issuing bank. Due to ValidSoft's
ability to accurately detect electronic fraud and eliminate up to
95% of false positives, the software offers card issuing banks
significant operational cost savings, high customer satisfaction,
greater customer protection, higher transaction completion and
significantly reduced fraud. "Bank fraud and identity theft are a
worldwide epidemic that account for tens of billions of dollars
lost annually," said Pat Carroll, Chief Executive Officer of
ValidSoft. "We are confident that this strategic relationship is
the ideal partnership to combat the global fraud dilemma, and bring
innovative products using mobile networks. Upon completion of paid
trials, ValidSoft has received positive feedback from major
European banks. We believe that banks and governments worldwide
will make a concerted effort to stop bank fraud and identity theft
in order to provide peace of mind to customers and promote better
business practices. It is our goal to establish ourselves as a
worldwide leader in fraud prevention and we believe that this
agreement will help us achieve that goal." ValidSoft is a
real-time, risk-based, Out-of-Band Multi-factor Authentication and
Transaction Verification platform with solutions designed to help
prevent fraud across a variety of transaction types and channels
including: Card Present (CP) & Card Not Present (CNP) fraud and
false positive detection, identification and resolution; Internet
Banking; Telephone Banking; Mobile Financial Services; Extranet;
VPN; Remote Access, and Business Continuity. The solutions are
disability enabled, environmentally friendly and based on
telecommunications technologies thereby providing the highest
levels of security up to non-repudiation level where required,
based on the banks risk policies. Mr. Martin Zuurbier, CTO of
Elephant Talk Communications added, "The market for fraud
prevention software and solutions is an emerging and rapidly
growing sector. In the last 100 years, the scope and quality of
telecommunications technology has exceeded anything anyone could
have imagined, from the introduction of basic Telephone Service, up
to the massive introduction of the Internet followed by the
enormous development of mobile and wireless capabilities. In
today's market financial institutions would benefit from adopting
our mobile enabling technology in coordination with ValidSoft's
capabilities in order to lower credit fraud. On top of that, our
joint venture will provide banks the platform for a secure mobile
distribution channel as an alternative for bricks and mortar or
internet banking, while allowing the banks to reach their customer
base on an individualized basis. Further, by using our converging
technology and fully integrating Fixed, Mobile, WIMAX and WIFI
platforms, Elephant Talk should gain a strong competitive advantage
in servicing the needs of the world's largest banks." "The approach
taken by Elephant Talk and ValidSoft represents a complete paradigm
shift to combating the global electronic fraud epidemic," stated
Mr. Phil Hickman, Chairman of ValidSoft Limited. "During my 32
years at HSBC Bank, I spent much of my time focused on
trouble-shooting, change management and innovation. In my opinion
ValidSoft's software, in combination with Elephant Talk's superior
delivery platform will provide both banks and governments the most
accurate, best in class, and cost effective fraud prevention
solution on the market. We estimate that our software combined with
Elephant Talk's platform will provide significant savings to the
banking industry." About Elephant Talk Communications Elephant Talk
Communications is positioning itself as an international telecom
operator and enabler to the multimedia industry by facilitating the
distribution of all forms of content as well as mobile and fixed
telecom services to global telecommunications consumers. The
Company provides traditional telecom services, media streaming, and
distribution services primarily to the business-to-business (B2B)
community within the telecommunications market where it has a
presence. The Company's global footprint as a fully licensed
carrier, supported by its propriety IN (Intelligent Network) and
Billing/CRM (Client Relationship Management) Systems, has been
designed to offer cutting-edge solutions to the increasingly
competitive global multimedia industry. Elephant Talk's
telecommunications platform eliminates the usual limitations caused
by national borders, networks, devices or media and, therefore,
enables its B2B customers to operate as independent telecom and
multimedia distribution organizations. Elephant Talk is also a
developer for mobile telecom and content distribution solutions;
and, as a Mobile Virtual Network Enabler (MVNE), the company has
positioned itself as the premier outsourcing partner for both
Mobile Network Operators (MNO's) as well as for Mobile Virtual
Network Operators (MVNO's). At the same time, Elephant Talk assists
its MNO partners to more efficiently provide a broad range of
sophisticated services to their own existing base of MVNO's.
Elephant Talk is positioning itself as the preferred MVNE partner
of the larger, global Mobile Operators and currently operates
sophisticated networks in over a dozen markets in Europe, Asia
Pacific, and the Middle East. The Company was ranked fifth on the
Orange County 2008 Deloitte Technology Fast 50. For more
information, visit: http://www.elephanttalk.com/. Forward-Looking
Statements Certain statements contained herein constitute
"forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking
statements are based on current expectations, estimates and
projections about the Company's industry, management's beliefs and
certain assumptions made by management. Readers are cautioned that
any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future
performance and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and
assumptions that are difficult to predict. Because such statements
involve risks and uncertainties, the actual results and performance
of the Company may differ materially from the results expressed or
implied by such forward-looking statements. Given these
uncertainties, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on
such forward-looking statements. Unless otherwise required by law,
the Company also disclaims any obligation to update its view of any
such risks or uncertainties or to announce publicly the result of
any revisions to the forward-looking statements made here; however,
readers should review carefully reports or documents the Company
files periodically with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
About ValidSoft ValidSoft is an emerging leading provider of
telecommunications based, world class security solutions to counter
the serious problem of growing fraud, in particular Card Fraud (ATM
and Point of Sale), Card Not Present fraud (e.g. Internet
purchases) and Internet Banking fraud, which is costing the
Financial Services Industry, Corporations and Governments billions
of dollars per annum in fraud losses and associated administration
and manual processing costs. ValidSoft solutions represent a
paradigm shift in solving these problems with performance
improvements of over 900% achievable over today's industry standard
results. ValidSoft solutions are easy to implement, are
operationally fast (sub second), accurate, low cost and avoid
privacy issues. The solutions are capable of providing protection
against the most sophisticated fraud, yet are simple and convenient
for users and provide a fast return on investment. For more
information, visit http://www.validsoft.com/. For media enquiries,
please contact: Elephant Talk Communications, Inc. Mr. Steven van
der Velden Tel: +31 20 653 59 16 Email:
http://www.elephanttalk.com/ Or Investor Relations: Alliance
Advisors for Elephant Talk Thomas Walsh Tel: 212-398-3487
DATASOURCE: Elephant Talk Communications, Inc. CONTACT: Mr. Steven
van der Velden of Elephant Talk Communications, Inc.,
+31-20-653-59-16, ; or Investor Relations, Thomas Walsh of Alliance
Advisors for Elephant Talk, +1-212-398-3487, Web Site:
http://www.elephanttalk.com/
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