Card payment activity jumps in March 13 May 2015 4:18PM John Kavanagh The number of purchases made using credit and charge cards jumped 15 per cent in March, compared with the previous month. According to the latest Reserve Bank card payment figures, consumers used their credit and charge cards to make 190.8 million purchases in March, compared with 164.6 million purchases in February. It is only the third time that the number of purchases has exceeded 19 million in a month (and the other occasions were in Christmas periods).The value of those purchases was A$25.6 billion - an increase of 15.6 per cent on the February spend. It is only the second time that spending on credit and charge cards has exceeded $25 billion a month.The big increase may be a blip but it may also reflect the concerted marketing of credit cards over the past year or so. Card issuers have offered increasingly generous balance transfer and introductory rate deals to attract new business and to encourage spending.More recently they have been using reward points offers in their marketing.Activity in the debit card market was also strong. The number of debit card purchases rose 13.5 per cent in March and the value of those purchases rose 14.3 per cent to $18.6 billion.