The recovery in the use of credit cards continues, with purchases on personal cards at record levels for the third month in a row. According to the latest Reserve Bank payments data, consumers made purchases worth A$25.7 billion in October, only a little below the $26.2 billion of spending recorded in August – the highest monthly spend on personal cards ever recorded by the RBA. Spending on credit cards fell to a multi-year low of $14.7 billion in April 2020, as COVID restrictions started to take effect. As depressed levels of spending continued through 2020 and 2021, some commentators were calling the demise of credit cards as a form of payment. But not only has spending recovered by the number of card accounts has picked up in recent months, and is likely to continue. Equifax reported in its most recent Consumer Credit Demand Index that credit card applications rose 31.5 per cent and personal loan applications rose 22 per cent in the September quarter, compared with the same period last year. The revival of overseas travel has played a big part in all this. After falling to a low of $330.8 million in April 2020, the value of overseas purchases on locally issued cards has been running at more than $1.5 billion a month since July. Another factor is that Australian households have started to fall back on credit cards and personal loans as their savings buffers start to run down. The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported in its national accounts release yesterday that increases in household spending have outpaced household income growth this year and the household savings ratio has fallen for four consecutive quarters.