According to research by YouGov on behalf of outsourcing firm Firstsource Solutions who commissioned the study, 30% of participants admitted that they would rather hang on to their smartphone and lose their wallet. The study also revealed that younger users placed a higher value on their smartphones, with 42% of 16 to 24 year olds and 34% of 25 to 34 year olds claiming that they cared less about their wallet than their smartphone compared to just 19% of 45 to 54 year olds.

The firm also researched how addicted consumers had become to their smartphones by surveying the usage habits of 2,000 British consumers, aged 16 and above. Firstsource Solutions telecom and media division executive VP Santanu Nandi said: “The fact that so many people would rather lose their wallet than their smartphone shows how indispensable these devices have become to the kind of lives we now lead.”

With the likes of Orange teaming up with Barclaycard to create Quick-Tap – a service that lets you make small purchases by simply passing a specially equipped Samsung phone over a reader, to the growing number of high-end phones that feature NFC as standard, the irony is your smartphone will actually become your wallet in the next couple of years!