THERE was a time when people would carry around this thing called money, crisply folding notes and shiny little coins which they would exchange for things they wanted to buy … but that was a very long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.

It seems that these days money is simply losing its shine, it isn't quite as popular as it once was, many of us preferring to pay for what we want on our credit and debit cards.

But surely we can't replace money altogether? I mean you're always going to need some small change, right?

You couldn't get on a bus, pick up your local paper or buy a hotdog on match day and offer to pay with your credit card, could you?

Well, maybe not yet (unless you live in Japan), but with developments in mobile technology, support of the banks and many big businesses on board, a cashless society will definitely be a possibility in the next few years.

The idea of a making small electronic payment has been around since the late 90s with companies like IBM and Compaq and organisations such as the World Wide Web Consortium (w3c) and many of the major universities working projects. The original proposals, generally referred to as micropayments, were designed predominantly to allow the sale of online content. It was thought these payments would involve sums of up to £10, but as low as a couple of pence.

The cost of processing the transactions, however, meant that sales under a pound were not really cost effective.

On the whole, micropayments never took off.

The latest plans to replace cash are based around mobile payments. Currently there are four models being developed; premium rate SMS based, direct mobile billing, mobile web payments (WAP) including online wallets, such as Paypal and Google Checkout, a nd, finally, a system know as NFC, near field communication or contactless payments.

Of these technologies, NFC seems to be one of the more promising with Visa and Samsung promising to offer facilities for paying for snacks, drinks and travel tickets in time for the London 2012 Olympics in order to cut down queues.

There are several key developments on the horizon, but there is no clear market leader, nor are there any international standards as yet … so if I were you and I wanted to ensure I got a copy of The Journal tomorrow, I'd hang on to some of that cash just a little longer.

David Coxon, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art