As technology continues to advance at rapid speed, less and less people are using cold hard cash to pay for their purchases, instead relying on easy and instant card payments to transfer funds.

While younger generations may not remember a time before online shopping, which allows you could track down almost anything with just a few clicks of a mouse, older generations still remain more likely to do the majority of their shopping the ‘old-fashioned way’.

However people’s preference to shop from the comfort of their own home, or on the go on their mobiles, is having an adverse effect on the circulation of currency and could soon lead to the phasing out of some silver coins.

The Royal Australian Mint this week revealed that the Aussie public’s reliance on contactless payment methods, as well as the rise of online shopping, could render physical coinage redundant in future, beginning with the smallest coins.

Mint CEO Ross MacDiarmid told ABC Radio that demand for coinage has fallen by 55 per cent over the past five years., meaning the 5 and 10 cent pieces will likely follow in the footsteps of the 1 and 2 cent coins that we bid farewell to in the 1990s.

“We think that 10c will have a similar trajectory,” he said.

“Retailers more than likely would be the ones that would stimulate a decline in the demand for 5c pieces because if you rounded up to 10 [cents] there’s not really much need for a five.”

While MacDiarmid predicts that 5 and 10c coins will “cease to be used”, he also said that it was unlikely they would be demonetised. This would mean that businesses could make their own decisions on whether to accept them, while members of the public would also still be able to cash them in at the bank.

MacDiarmid also spoke to the ABC about the unpopularity of the current 50 cent piece.

He said: “We are monitoring its use in circulation to see whether there’s a need somewhere in the future for a different 50c piece to be produced … It’s something that perhaps could be raised in the future.”