Hungary’s CIB Bank has teamed up with Visa (NYSE: V) to put contactless payment rings into everyday banking, turning a once-niche wearable into a mainstream account perk.
Under a joint initiative, eligible customers who open selected CIB ECO current accounts and add a Visa Inspire debit card can claim a RingPay payment ring instead of relying solely on a plastic card or phone wallet.
The offer targets customers who meet the campaign terms for CIB ECO, ECO Plusz, or ECO For You accounts.
Those who qualify receive a coupon they can redeem for a black RingPay ring, which retails for 31,900 forints.
The promotion has been positioned as more than a giveaway.
CIB and Visa are using it to introduce a new generation of wearable payments to younger adults who already treat contactless taps as routine.
RingPay rings are designed as always-ready jewelry rather than gadgets that need charging.
They contain no battery and draw power from the payment terminal during an NFC tap.
They are waterproof, work without an internet connection, and can be used at any terminal that accepts Visa contactless payments, in Hungary or abroad.
Setup is handled through a smartphone app: the wearer pairs the ring, adds eligible card details, and can then pay by holding a hand near the reader.
Security follows the same tokenization model used in modern card and mobile wallets.
The ring does not store actual card numbers.
Each transaction uses a unique digital token, so a lost or stolen ring does not expose the underlying account. Users can deactivate the device in the app if it goes missing.
The partnership builds on earlier technical work that let CIB Visa and Mastercard cards link directly to RingPay wearables through Fidesmo’s tokenization platform, without routing payments through a third-party wallet.
That direct connection simplifies onboarding and keeps the payment path closer to the customer’s own bank card. Research commissioned by CIB and Visa found strong interest among younger Hungarians.
More than half of adults aged 18 to 35 said they would try a payment ring, and a sizable share of those aged 27 to 35 had already used some form of wearable payment device.
Convenience was the main draw: no phone to unlock, no wallet to fish out, and a tap that works even when hands are wet, or pockets are empty.
For CIB, part of the Intesa Sanpaolo group, the campaign is a bet that payment jewelry can sit alongside cards and phones as a normal way to spend.
For Visa, it extends contactless credentials into a form factor that people already wear.
RingPay itself is produced by Money Carer Group, a British social enterprise that originally developed battery-free wearables to help people who struggle with PINs, cards or smartphones.
The result is a practical experiment in how banking products reach customers. Instead of treating a payment ring as a futuristic extra, CIB and Visa have placed it at the center of a current-account offer. If enough new customers activate the rings and keep using them, Hungary could become one of the first markets where paying with a ring looks ordinary rather than novel.