Fannie Mae is moving closer to launching a pilot program to dispose of some of its nonperforming residential loans, according to industry advisors familiar with the GSE’s plans.

Walker & Dunlop announced today the acquisition of CW Capital LLC . The combination will create one of the largest commercial real estate lenders in the nation.

Moody's Investors Service said in a report this week that the growing gap in performance between stronger and weaker malls requires a closer look.

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.