Michael Ebstein, from MWE Consulting has been analysing payments made by Australians in 2017.  "The January 2018 card spend was a respectable 7.7 per cent above January 2017 and recorded a 4.6 per cent month-on-month decline in spend, well below that seen in recent years," he said. The shift in share between debit and credit has been "profound" over the last ten years, Ebstein said, with credit and charge costs declining from a 67.5 per cent share of value to the current 53.4 per cent.  "With card purchases now running at A$594.7 billion annually, this decline in share represents a value of $83.9 billion that has moved from credit to debit," observed the analysts at MWE. "This may well be a result of a change in relative card positioning following the impact of last year's RBA regulatory changes," stated the MWE report. Another notable trend identified by Ebstein is that the revolve rate lifted from the record low of 60 per cent in December 2017 to 63.2 per cent in January 2018. But with this rate falling short of the January 2017 figure by sixty basis points, the underlying average annual rate slipped further to 61.7 per cent. In contrast, the downwards trend for debit spend mirrors that for credit (although it continues to report a higher month-on-month lift) having been 23 per cent in 2003 and 9.5 per cent in 2017.  The numbers show that, after a Christmas spending splurge, Australians were more restrained with their spending in January, according to Ryan Felsman, senior economist at CommSec. "While largely a seasonal phenomenon, the average credit card balance fell to the lowest level in three months. And the percentage monthly decline of 2.6 per cent in January was the equal largest fall in two and a half years," James said. "It is moving towards the levels of a decade ago when the numbers were almost equal."The value of cash withdrawals through both ATMs and eftpos is also declining but the role of ATMs as a distribution channel for cash is strengthening slightly against eftpos. This may well continue with ATM now able to match eftpos as a no fee channel.