Commonwealth Bank has thrown down the gauntlet to market darling Afterpay, pointing to a bounceback in its credit card applications driven by its new, no-interest “Neo” card that is targeting the buy now, pay later sector’s Millennial customer base.

In a dig at rival Westpac, which will provide Afterpay with “white-labelled” deposit accounts allowing Afterpay to maintain the customer relationship, CBA said on Wednesday it would not be relinquishing customer engagement as it boosted the proportion of investment spending going towards improving its banking application.