Consumers continue to increase their spending on credit and charge cards but they are keeping their account balances in check.Australia's 16.7 million credit and charge card account holders spent an average of A$1528 on their credit and charge cards in October - up from an average of $1515 in September and an average of $1510 in October last year.They have an average of $1910 in balances accruing interest on their cards - down from an average of $1942 a year earlier.Total credit and charge card spend in October was $25.6 billion on 213 million purchases. Repayments were worth $27.2 billion.Spending on debit cards was worth $21.3 billion on 423 million purchases - up from $21.1 billion the previous month.According to MWE Consulting's Mike Ebstein, debit's share of total purchase value continues to climb, moving up from around 43.5 per cent in October last year to just under 45 per cent today.