VezoPay, the South African company behind a battery-free tap-to-pay smart ring, has quietly gone live with Investec and Absa, taking its roster of banking partners to four in under a year. A fifth major retail bank is expected to follow before the end of 2026.

Neither of the new launches has been announced officially. Investec has been live for about three months, and has begun marketing the product. Absa credit cards were switched on recently, with the bank planning a full consumer launch in the next month or so built around an activation campaign running into 2027.

The company, founded by Jake Pinkus and Lawrence Baker, launched its first rings in July 2024. FNB and RMB Private Bank went live at the end of October last year. Baker said the bulk of the growth has come in the past six months.

VezoPay says it has a waiting list of about 35 000 people whose banks are not yet supported, a large share of them customers of a large retail bank due to launch later this year. That bank cannot yet be named.

The Investec roll-out offers the clearest sign of demand so far. The bank ran a discount campaign for private clients — 20% on the entry-level ceramic ring and 30% on gold — and VezoPay recorded hundreds of sales in the first few days, skewed unusually towards the premium models.

The founders say the constraint on growth is not manufacturing or technology but bank onboarding. Each institution runs its own internal governance and approval process, followed by a separate South African Reserve Bank sign-off.

Simplified

FNB’s approval took roughly nine months, Pinkus said; Investec’s took about four. Requirements have tightened rather than eased as the company has gained traction, with banks asking for penetration and stress testing and, in some cases, live international transactions to demonstrate that funds can be traced end to end.

The product line-up has been simplified since launch. The wider launch-edition band has been dropped in favour of a slimmer profile across the range, which is now made up of three families: the X, a ceramic ring in black, white and pink; the Classic, in brushed or polished stainless steel; and the gold Signature.

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Rose gold has been retired after proving divisive, with the founders holding it back for a possible limited run. The gold ring has been reworked with more bevelled edges after buyers complained it caught between the fingers, and has moved from 21-carat to 18-carat. Increased manufacturing capacity has brought the gold price down, while the ceramic and stainless steel models have gone up slightly. Gold rings now ship with free engraving.

The ring carries a programmable NFC chip with no battery, so it never needs charging, and is waterproof, dustproof and shockproof. Payment credentials are not stored on the device: linking a card writes a one-time token, in the same way a phone wallet works. One bank card can be tokenised at a time.

Vezopay founders Jake Pinkus and Lawrence Baker

Because the token sits on the card rails, the ring inherits the issuer’s fraud controls — location and velocity checks, and a Pin prompt above R500 or at an unfamiliar merchant. A ring can be locked from the app, and VezoPay has added an emergency Pin that lets a user freeze the device from any browser without needing their phone.

Further NFC functions are in beta, including a business card, retailer loyalty cards and an emergency medical profile carrying blood type, allergies and medical aid details, readable by tapping any NFC-capable phone.

Backers

The shareholder register has broadened considerably, too. Naspers South Africa CEO Phuti Mahanyele-Dabengwa invested early through the Three Birds group. Payfast founder Jonathan Smit came in as investor and adviser in early 2025 and remains involved.

The most recent round brought in Brandon Bekker and Paul Stafford, both former MDs of cybersecurity firm Mimecast, who now run investment and family office businesses. Baker said the Three Birds investment is now carried at a multiple of roughly 10 times its original value, though the company has not disclosed the size of any of the rounds.

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Beyond South Africa, two banks in Mauritius are testing the product, with beta programmes under way in three other African markets. VezoPay says its relationships with Visa and Mastercard have opened doors to issuers elsewhere on the continent. — © 2026 NewsCentral Media