Cash is no longer king as far as most Australians and South Koreans are concerned as more than eight in 10 pay less often in cash today than they did five years ago, according to a survey released on Monday.

Cash is no longer king as far as most Australians and South Koreans are concerned as more than eight in 10 pay less often in cash today than they did five years ago, according to a survey released on Monday.

In comparison, 69 percent of Americans surveyed use less cash than five years ago, while in Asia the figures were generally lower, with Singapore at 45 percent, said MasterCard Worldwide.

Shuan Ghaidan, MasterCard's Asia Pacific head of product sales and delivery, said one reason for the declining use of cash in Australia was the growing popularity of debit cards, while in South Korea contactless payment on mobile phones had picked up.

Credit cards tended to be used for higher value transactions, he said.

Besides young people, for whom debit cards are usually their first card, he said the debit card is also preferred by some older people "who don't want credit anymore, don't want to fall into debt anymore."

The global economy has been rocked in the past year by a credit crisis stemming from US mortgage loan defaults.

The survey noted that nearly 9 in 10 Australians and New Zealanders said they disliked carrying large amounts of cash, compared to 6 in 10 Singaporeans or 80 percent of Americans.

MasterCard said it conducted 7,000 interviews across 12 countries, including Malaysia, China, South Korea, Canada, Italy, France and Germany.