Cash and currency ¬are now facing their biggest transformations yet as the digitisation of money gathers pace.
For example, in Sweden - regarded as the world leader in the 'cashless society' - cash transactions made up barely two per cent of all payments in 2015 and are predicted to be 0.5 per cent by 2020 (source: Guardian, June 2016).
In Swedish shops, cash is now used for barely 20 per cent of transactions, half the number five years ago, and way below the global average of 75 per cent. Swedish buses don't take cash, nor does the Stockholm metro; card or phone payments are preferred in retail and street vendor outlets.
About 900 of Sweden's 1,600 bank branches no longer keep cash on hand or take cash deposits - and many, especially in rural areas, no longer have ATMs.
Banks and financial institutions, including those in New Zealand, have felt the impact and dealt with the disruption differently around the world, says James Bergin, ASB chief architect (a technology and enterprise specialist) and an alumnus of the University of Auckland Business School.
"Culturally, there are interesting shifts in the prioritisation of the benefits banks provide," he says. "In Africa, for example, you might hear talk of the 'unbanked' - people who trade using mobile phones, because phone companies have jumped out in front of banks in terms of infrastructure. However, in many parts of Eastern Europe, the bank branch is still king."
The move toward online banking has been long predicted in the West - it is more than 20 years since Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates famously said: "Banking is necessary. Banks are not."
However, the cashless society may take longer to arrive in New Zealand. Not only do banks still exist, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand reported the country's use of cash more than doubled in the decade 2000-2010.
As with many disrupted industries, ASB's response to money's growing intangibility has been to re-position itself as a tech company. While the bank is still primarily a "trusted provider of financial services", Bergin believes the future of banking lies in solving customers' problems in an agile and customer-centred way.
"Banking needs to embrace the best of what is happening in technological change but it must always place the customer at the heart of what it does," he says. "If you don't do that, you can get carried away with a trend or fashion in technology and forget why you are doing it."
Take the issue of money's growing intangibility - ultimately, says Bergin, innovation attempts to solve the problems of the organisation, the problems of the customer, or the problems of society.
"We have so many social mores and habits ingrained in a world where money is tangible. So, when money becomes intangible those things start to lose their efficacy.
"That leads to problems such as customers spending beyond their means because they can't see their money; or people investing in things they can touch, like property, and not investing in things they can't see, such as shares."
ASB has identified another challenge parents face in the cashless society: teaching their children the value of money in the digital age, when notes and coins tend not to be used for everyday purchases.
This challenge led ASB to create 'Clever Kash', a cashless money box which allows parents to swipe virtual notes and coins towards the child's money box, which displays the updated ASB account balance.
Sweden has the same worry - educators have also raised the issue of young people tempted to spend money they do not have. Senior citizens representatives say those who prefer cash, like older people, may be more reluctant to use new technology or easier to keep track of their spending and could be disadvantaged in a cashless world.
Bergin says the Clever Kash concept grew out of employing a tech mind-set to solve a customer problem, and involved collaboration between ASB's technology, marketing, financial and legal teams and the bank's creative agencies. It went into a customer pilot phase in April.
Bergin warns against investing too much effort in predicted banking trends: "Take bitcoin, or any of the crypto-currencies or distributed-ledger systems. Everyone is saying: 'That's the next big thing. That is what is going to change banking.' But banking is already changing daily.
"Whether you are a fan of Darwin or not, business is about survival of the fittest. That does not mean the ability to predict - it is about being able to adapt." - Rachael Breckon