ME Bank's recent decision to abandon a planned expansion of its credit card business coincided with a record slowdown in credit card purchases across the Australian market in the middle of the year.According to the latest MWE Consulting payments report, credit and charge card spending increased by only 1.1 per cent in August - the lowest monthly growth rate recorded in thirty years."We need to go back to 1989 to see a lower annual rate of growth," said MWE director, Mike Ebstein."Account balances also fell by 1.7 per cent - a new low for this indicator. There is nothing to suggest an imminent arrest of this slide, let alone a recovery in growth rates."The immediate outlook for providers of credit and charge cards looks particularly bleak given that the number of cardholders revolving debt on their accounts is continuing to decline.The average revolve rate on personal and commercial credit cards fell to 61.3 per cent from 62 per cent at the end of August last year.Over the past twelve months, the revolve rate on commercial cards has risen slightly but this has been outweighed by a sharp fall in the number of consumers electing to revolve balances.However, the strategic decline of credit and charge cards is probably best illustrated by a surge in the number of Australian consumers closing their accounts with financial institutions.The number of consumers abandoning credit cards has accelerated this year.In the 12 months to the end of August the number of credit and charge cards on issue fell by 3.3 per cent to 15.69 million.Account numbers began declining in the second half of 2017 when there were more than 16.7 million cards on issue.While there is no doubt that the advent of 'buy now pay later' providers has contributed to the demise of credit card spending in Australia, this trend pre-dates their market entry by almost a decade.Debit cards, which accounted for 44.7 per cent of all card-based payments in 2016, are now poised to overtake credit cards on spending, according to Ebstein."The shift to debit lost no momentum over the last twelve successive twelve month periods," he said."Debit is still expected to overtake credit and charge with more than fifty per cent of annual spend before the end of 2019."Citi Australia, which has negotiated a string of new card distribution deals with retailers and other financial institutions, was one of the few local issuers to grow credit card balances in August.