One of my childhood memories is of a man who used to walk up and down our high street every Saturday with a placard proclaiming 'The end of the world is nigh'. He hasn't been seen for a number of years and the best-case scenario is that he and his placard are having a well-earned rest in the local retirement home.

When I was at university I was advised that if you are going to make a prediction, make it long term. A date when you're not around to face any criticism if it all goes wrong. In the case of the placard carrier, after a while people used to smile and comment 'He's been saying that for thirty years'.

The same rules, it appears, do not apply to journalists. I recently came across a paper that claimed the media have been forecasting a cashless society since at least 1968. So, Happy 50th Birthday Cashless Society! The Cash Repository article highlights further clippings from the seventies onwards and more recently a 2007 Economist cover featuring a dinosaur and the headline 'The End of the Cash Era'.

There used to be a saying in the UK, “today’s news is tomorrow's fish and chip wrapping”. But those days have gone, not least because of health and safety regulations. The Internet now records these erroneous predictions for posterity.

And yet, they still continue. There is even a season. Every February / March the articles start appearing. Last week The Guardian published not one but two articles, 'Cash eclipsed as Britain turns to digital payments' and 'Is this the beginning of the end for cash?'

Now I'm certainly not saying there hasn't been movement in this direction. In the oft-quoted example of Sweden a cashless society is indeed fast approaching. That said, the Riksbank has expressed concerns that older people have not adopted digital payments and are in danger of being left behind. To put this in context, at 9.9 million, Sweden accounts for 0.13 percent of the global population.

Meanwhile, elsewhere cash remains important. The latest global figures show cash accounting for around 85 percent of all transactions. According to World Atlas, the UK is ranked third amongst the World's Most Cashless Societies. So how close is this cashless society?

Cash accounted for 44 percent of all UK consumer transactions in 2016 and will account for 21 percent in 2026. That's still a large number of payments and 2.7 million people in the UK are still completely reliant on cash. In the same week that these most recent cashless articles appeared Victoria Cleland, chief cashier at the Bank of England was interviewed by The Guardian and put the latest forecasts in context. She explained 'Cash is definitely here to stay. That's why it's important we in the cash industry invest in it, even though transaction demand is going to slow down.'

I’m not sure anyone doubts that we are heading towards a less cash society, but cashless? Ask me again in 50 years.