Shusuke Ishizaka would lose his wallet permanently if all of Tokyo's shops accepted payments from his mobile phone.
A 34-year-old engineer from Tokyo, Mr Ishizaka uses an electronic chip embedded in his phone to pay for food and drinks each day.
"I started using the wallet phone service two years ago … when I bought the phone, I became aware of the Osaifu Keitai function, so I started using it," he says.
"I use it two or three times every day, in the morning and night, to pay for food. I buy meals, juice and magazines with it.
"If every shop let you use a wallet phone, then I would use it all the time."
More than 51 million phones equipped with this technology, known as Osaifu Keitai (literally "wallet phone"), have been sold in Japan to date.
The Osaifu Keitai system can be used to order fast food — you choose items from a menu on your phone then touch it on a pad at the restaurant.
Japan's ubiquitous vending machines are now often equipped with phone touch pads, so you can buy a can of hot coffee without fumbling for small change.
But the most common use is for transport — most rail operators have ticket gates that open at the touch of a phone.
All of the Osaifu Keitai in Japan use a technology called FeliCa, developed by electronics giant Sony.
Over two million people are currently registered to use the system's services, Masayuki Takezawa of Sony's FeliCa division says.
"The main user of the service is young people, especially young men, and middle aged people," Mr Takezawa says.
"In Japan the cell phone is very popular and … if this cell phone has wallet functionalities it's very easy for people to use in town or at stations.
"So we provide a kind of architecture to use the cell phone like a wallet."
The cashless society has long been a dream of futurists, and Japan's current experience suggests it's not far off being realised.
The FeliCa system also is in use across a number of Asian cities, including Singapore, Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Bangkok.
It seems inevitable that FeliCa, or a technology along the same lines, will eventually be common in Australian mobile phones.
But Melbourne-based academic Antony Young of RMIT University believes it would be foolish to rush into a cashless society without first having a proper debate.
"I think technology is developing and I think society is developing," Dr Young says.
"I think the technology is a reflection of our development and therefore I see no reason not to bring it in but I do see very good reasons to consider it from health, technology, but other social perspectives, including privacy elements."
Dr Young said he was concerned that the data from phone wallet transactions could be transmitted to companies and sold on to advertisers or other people.
"If we're having a record of all our exchanges, then that starts to profile you," he said.
"I would be resistant to any cashless system that comes directly into your body like an implantable chip, which is a possibility."
Dr Young said that a full investigation into the impacts of cashless technologies would help establish the best kind of system for Australians.
"I don't think we can stop technology advancing, we don't want to be the backwater, we've had this information and technology explosion and we want to be part of it," he said.
"I just think we've got to, like any intellectual situation, look at it, think about it, discuss, it, and put it in our top journals."
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