Fitch Ratings said today that a substantial rise in defaults would lead to incremental losses in privately funded student loan ABS pools.

The Federal Reserve Board on Thursday unanimously approved the release of a set of proposals that would raise banks' minimum capital requirement to 7%.

Mortgage investors, who have been complaining for months about the costs they will bear under the national servicing settlement, presented a list of proposed remedies at a congressional hearing Thursday.

The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) today published a consultation report on global developments in securitization regulation.

Garett Stoffels joined BGC Partners' real estate capital markets group as senior managing director and head of equity capital markets, the company said in press release today.

If enacted by U.S. regulators as currently drafted, the Simple Supervisory Formula Approach (SSFA) would require banks to give capital risk weightings to securitizations that are sharply higher than those assessed under the longstanding ratings-based approach, according to a presentation by Brian P. Lancaster, co-head of structured transactions at RBS, and John Jordan, from the bank’s financial institutions division.

As the possibility of Greece’s exit from the Eurozone heightens, Moody’s Investors Service today announced that it downgraded the ratings of four Greek covered bond programs. The main catalyst for these downgrades was Moody’s lowering of its Greek country ceiling to ‘Caa2.’

Credit Suisse intends to publicly place the CHF 237 million ($248mln) senior tranche of a new credit card ABS deal; it will be the first time a Swiss credit card securitization is publicly marketed, according to Fitch Ratings.

After Fitch Ratings performed two stress tests — severe and moderate — on its rated CMBS, the results reveal that 67% of ‘AAAsf’ ratings would remain strong in a severe recession or decline in the real estate markets’ activity.

The May prepayment report was all about HARP, as was expected; however, speeds on seasoned 5.0%s on through 6.5% were faster than anticipated. Meanwhile, lower coupons were mostly slower than projected.

Moody’s Investors Service said that Spain, Greece and the U.K. are the European countries most vulnerable to a precipitous drop in housing prices from an economic shock, according to a report released Thursday on the agency’s methodology for stressing house prices linked to its RMBS transactions.

The differential in pricing between Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac MBS has widened over the past year despite a high level of refinancings and issuance. But concerns are growing that investors’ preference for Fannie mortgage-backed securities could increase even more as refinancings decline later this year, according to officials at the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). Both GSEs are wards of the federal government.