VezoPay, the South African startup behind a tap-to-pay ring, now works with 4 banking partners, after going live with Investec and Absa this year. It first launched with FNB and RMB Private Bank in late 2025. The company, founded in 2021 by Jake Pinkus and Lawrence Baker, says more of the country's big retail banks are queued to join in 2027.

The ring looks like ordinary jewellery but hides a small chip and antenna. It has no battery. When you tap it on a card machine, the terminal's own signal powers the chip for long enough to complete the payment, which is why it never needs charging and works without a phone nearby.

What’s cool about this is obvs the unique application: most builders take wearables the fitness route. The banking approach is what makes this unique.

Your card details are never stored on the ring. Linking a card writes a one-time token to the chip, the same approach Apple Pay and Google Pay use, so a lost ring does not expose your card number. It is certified by Visa and Mastercard, runs on the Fidesmo contactless platform, and works anywhere those cards are accepted.

The ring can be locked in the VezoPay app, and an emergency PIN lets you freeze it from any web browser, even if your phone is gone. Prices start at R2,999 for the ceramic X-Ring Slim and go up to R9,250 for the gold Signature, and it is waterproof, dustproof and shockproof.

Getting each bank on board is the slow part. Every bank runs its own internal approval process, followed by a separate sign-off from the Reserve Bank, and some have asked for penetration and stress testing, plus live international transactions to show money can be traced end to end.

In August, VezoPay said about 35,000 people were on a waiting list because their bank did not yet support the ring. PayFast founder Jonathan Smit is an investor and adviser, and its latest round brought in 2 former managing directors of cybersecurity firm Mimecast. Beyond South Africa, 2 banks in Mauritius are testing the ring, with trials in 3 other African markets.

TechCentral reported the Investec and Absa launches in August, and that one bank's discount campaign for private clients produced hundreds of sales in days, skewed towards the gold models. WeeTracker described the bank approval process as VezoPay's toughest test. We Are Tech Africa profiled Pinkus and VezoPay's plans to add digital business cards and emergency medical details to the ring.

After 2 months of daily use, Geekhub called it a niche convenience that still never left the reviewer's finger.

The technology inside the ring is not unique. What VezoPay has built that is hard to copy is the bank approvals. Each one takes months of security testing and a Reserve Bank sign-off, and every bank that goes live makes the next conversation easier and raises the bar for anyone trying to follow.

That is a useful lesson for any South African fintech selling into banks: the product gets you the meeting, but the approvals are the real asset. The ring also suits local conditions.

In a country where phone theft is a common route to bank fraud, as we covered in our guide to protecting your bank account, a payment device that is not a phone and does not look like a card has obvious appeal.

The real test now is the big retail banks. Until they join, tens of thousands of interested buyers can only wait, which is why 2027 matters more for VezoPay than anything it has done so far. We first flagged the ring when it launched with FNB.

You might also like our piece on Omnisient's Money20/20 win, Revolut's SA plans, and FNB's crypto trading launch.

Get more SA tech and business news and subscribe to The Open Letter.