Paying with a ring: how it works.

What is inside a payment ring

• A payment chip of the kind in contactless cards.
• An antenna that loops round the band. Metal gets in the way of the signal, which is one reason payment rings are often ceramic or resin; Lychnos Ring is resin, with no metal.
• A token, not your card number. When you add a card, the payment network issues a substitute number for the ring. The shop sees the token; if the ring is lost, the token is frozen and the card stays as it is.
• No charging needed to pay. Like a card, the chip draws its power from the terminal’s field while you hold the ring near it.

The EU’s contactless limits

EU rules let a bank skip the PIN for a contactless payment of up to 50 EUR. The bank must ask again once a total of 150 EUR has been paid that way since the last check, or after five such payments in a row; the bank chooses which of the two counts. Above the limits, the terminal asks for the PIN or another check. Banks may set lower limits, and the same rules apply to a card, a phone or a ring.

What to check before you choose one

• Your bank and your card. A ring works only with the banks and card networks its payment partner supports.
• What happens if you lose it. You should be able to freeze it in an app at once.
• Moving to a new ring. Whether the card can move to a replacement, and at what cost.
• The fit. A payment ring has to be held close to the terminal; a size that turns on the finger is awkward at the till. Our ring size calculator helps.

What we plan for Lychnos Ring

• Tap to pay at shop terminals, through a licensed payment partner: a payment chip and its antenna in the ring, a token instead of your card number, and a lost ring frozen in the app. Which banks and cards will work depends on that partner, and we will say before we ask for the rest of the price.
• Later, paying a bill by voice, through a licensed open-banking provider: only to payees you have approved in the app, with small limits for voice payments, and with your bank’s own approval. The assistant proposes the payment; tested code checks the limits and the signs of a scam, and nothing moves until you press yes on the ring.

All of this is in development and depends on partners we have not chosen yet. More about the ring in the AI ring you talk to, and about how its assistant asks before it acts in what an AI agent is.

Source, read 4 November 2026: Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2018/389, Article 11, on contactless payments at the point of sale. General information, not financial advice.