CONSUMERS are racking up more than $1 billion in cash advances on their credit cards in a single month, marking a 14 per cent increase on the same time last year.

With the exception of dubious pay day lenders, cash advances on credit cards are one of the most costly ways of borrowing money, with daily interest calculated at as much as 21 per cent with no interest-free period.

Yet according to the latest figures from the Reserve Bank, credit card holders withdrew $1092 million in cash from their credit card accounts in September, an increase of $134 million compared to last September.

The number of credit cards held by Australians has also increased by 10 per cent over the past year, prompting the NSW Opposition yesterday to accuse the State Government of defaulting on its responsibility to ensure ethical lending practices for credit cards.

In May last year, the then Minister for Fair Trading, Linda Burney, announced that the NSW Government was "leading the push to rein in credit card debt", promising to crack down on providers offering easy access to credit cards without any rigorous assessment of the card holder's ability to repay, and offers of large increases in credit limits on existing cards.