Personal Finance

The MBA's weekly mortgage applications survey for the week ending August 14 had not been released at research time, leaving composite, purchase, and refinance index changes unconfirmed. The most recent available MBA data, covering the week ending August 7, showed a 4-basis-point drop in the 30-year conforming contract rate to 6.77%, which lifted the Refinance Index 5% week over week though still 22% below the prior year. A separate Zillow-attributed national average of 6.63% for August 18, reported by Yahoo Finance, is a different measure from MBA contract rates and cannot be directly compared to the MBA series.

New York's Department of Financial Services filed a formal proposal on July 15, 2026, that would require Buy Now, Pay Later lenders, loan acquirers, and facilitating platforms to obtain state licenses and comply with Truth-in-Lending-style disclosures. The rule caps violation fees at an $8 safe harbor, limits data sharing to case-specific annual consent, and sets a 90-day maximum for resolving billing disputes. The proposal remains open for written public comment through September 14, 2026, and would take effect 180 days after a Notice of Adoption is published.