Over the past few years, credit and charge card issuers have got used to seeing the Reserve Bank report weak spending and account balance figures each month. The latest figures have brought a new dimension to their misery: the number of cards on issue fell from 15.35 million in April to 15.33 million in May.Consumers made $22.5 billion of purchases on their credit and charge cards in May - an increase of 4.4 per cent over the previous month. However, the annual rate of growth in card spend is only 3.5 per cent.The average card account balance fell by 1.6 per cent, to A$3236.20, over the 12 months to May. And there has been no growth in credit limits over the past year.Debt continues to claim a bigger share of card spend, increasing from 39.6 per cent in May last year to 41.3 per cent this year. Purchases made with debit cards rose 13.5 per cent over the past year.