The Reserve Bank of Australia's payments cards market data for the 2017 year has shown a very steady rate of growth in debit accounts over the past four years. Analysis by Michael Ebstein from MWE Consulting found that card balances lost momentum through 2017 to be barely increasing. The average transaction size for purchases on debit or credit cards in 2017 continued to decline."An average purchase on a personal credit card is now approaching A$100 whereas in 2009, it had reached $131," Ebstein reported in a note to clients. He also found the value of purchases on payment cards grew from $423 billion in 2012 to $590 billion in 2017, although it is debit cards that have provided the principal drive and are now pulling away from personal credit. Credit and charge accounts recovered a little over the last twelve months. On Ebstein's analysis, the average spend on a credit or charge account rose from $17,277 in 2012 to $18,809 in 2016, and then to $19,435 in 2017. Average balances are heading in the opposite direction, going from $3,301 in 2012 to $3,115 in 2106 and $3,107 in 2017. The average limit has barely moved, having been $9,071 in 2012 and now $9,089 in 2017."In 2012, debit purchases were 15 per cent below personal credit purchases but by 2017, debit exceeded personal credit by seven per cent," Ebstein said. While debit and credit accounts fight for leadership in payments, there have not been huge changes to the share of the value of cash transactions between 2012 and 2017. However, cash now makes up a smaller pie than in the last year, and has been subjected to what Ebstein called "a small rebalancing" with "own ATMs" losing share to "other ATMs" and eftpos losing a very small share to ATMs. In spite of these "considerable headwinds", the value of total credit and charge card spend grew from $260 billion in 2012 to $313 billion in 2016, and then to $325 billion in 2017.