Agency MBS · Clearance & Settlement

The settlement layer for Agency MBS operations.

TBA Mortgage Master automates the full clearance and settlement lifecycle — pair-offs, trade assignments, round robins, and EPN allocations — so asset managers, dealers, and custodians move from manual processing to true straight-through processing.

Request a Demo → Calculate Your ROI

Integrated with S&P Global thinkFolio/ FICC-approved EPN vendor/ Tradeweb/ SWIFT-compliant

TBA MORTGAGE MASTER · LIVE FLOW STP 99.97%

Match→Pair-off · Assign · EPN→SWIFT→Settled

A · 30yr UMBS B · 15yr C · GN 30yr D · GN 15yr Illustrative flow — no touch required

Connected across the trade

S&P Global thinkFolio

The problem

Manual MBS operations don’t scale — and they fail at the worst time.

Agency MBS is one of the largest, most liquid, and most operationally intensive corners of fixed income. Most desks still run it on spreadsheets, email, fax, and headcount. Four costs follow.

Manual workflows

Keyed trade by trade

Pair-offs, SIFMA assignments, round robins, and EPN allocations entered by hand against an unforgiving settlement calendar.

Settlement risk

One miss = a fail

A single missed allocation or stale pool factor triggers a fail — with funding cost, counterparty friction, and audit exposure.

Bottlenecks

Capped at human speed

Volume spikes hit a human ceiling. Throughput is limited by how fast a team can type, not by the market.

Human capital

2–3× the headcount

Legacy processing needs two to three times the operations staff of an automated network to clear comparable volume.

The solution

One network. The entire lifecycle, automated.

The AFS MBS Ops Network connects buy-side and dealer books on a single real-time clearance and settlement layer. Set your firm’s flows up once — the system runs them, validating SIFMA good-delivery rules against the full universe of agency pool data on every notification and substitution.

Trade match

CTM / RTTM

Pair-offs

netting

Assignments

SIFMA · AOT

Round robins

Tradeweb

EPN allocations

FICC

Reporting

SWIFT

Reconciliation

daily

Explore TBA Mortgage Master →

An operations analyst monitoring MBS settlement

No-touch, by default

Run it automatically. Step in by exception.

TBA Mortgage Master processes the routine flow without manual entry and surfaces only the exceptions — color-coded so your team works the breaks, not the queue.

✓AOT digital assignments — first and only vendor with the automation.
✓Real-time pool validation — every notification and substitution.
✓Proactive alerts — email whenever automation runs.

Return on automation

Pays for itself in months, not years.

<3[VERIFY]

Ops FTEs per dealer desk

Clear comparable volume with a fraction of the headcount of legacy processing.

~[VERIFY]%

Fewer settlement fails

No-touch processing and real-time pool validation cut the keying errors that drive fails.

Minutes

Match to reporting

STP compresses hours of manual work into an automated path to settlement reporting.

8X[VERIFY]

Average 2-year ROI

MBS Ops Network clients realize, on average, an 8X two-year return on investment.

Estimate your savings →

Who we serve

Built for both sides of the trade — and the custodians between.

Buy-side

Asset Managers

From 100 to 500,000+ trades a month, one account per block or 250+. The first and only vendor with AOT digital assignment automation.

For asset managers →

Sell-side

Dealers

Primary and regional desks clearing $1B to $180B a month — higher automated throughput, lower overhead than legacy alternatives.

For dealers →

Custody

Custodian Banks

Scheduled, SWIFT-compliant, digitally signed settlement and pair-off reporting — on the same network as your counterparties.

For custodians →

Integrations

Sits inside the stack you already run.

OMS and EMS — including Aladdin and Charles River — S&P Global thinkFolio, FICC and RTTM, CTM, Tradeweb, SWIFT messaging, and Black Knight / eMBS pool data, connected through FIX and a flexible API.

View all integrations

OMS / EMS

BlackRock Aladdin

OMS / EMS

Charles River

Platform

thinkFolio

Clearing

FICC

Matching

CTM / RTTM

Trading

Tradeweb

Messaging

SWIFT

Pool data

Black Knight / eMBS

“It’s been an excellent experience. AFS took the time to understand our operations and made the right adjustments to align with our needs.” [VERIFY attribution — client quote from current AFS site]

Operations leader, institutional asset manager [VERIFY]

Proof

What automation looks like in production.

Asset managers and dealers use AFS to cut operations headcount, reduce fails, and scale volume without scaling the team. Read how.

Read the case studies

Frequently asked

MBS operations questions, answered.

What is TBA Mortgage Master?

TBA Mortgage Master is Alpha Financial Software’s flagship platform for automating the full U.S. Agency MBS clearance and settlement lifecycle — straight pair-offs, SIFMA trade assignments, Tradeweb round robins, and FICC EPN pool allocations — delivering straight-through processing for asset managers, dealers, and custodians. It has been processing MBS clearance and settlement in production since 2008.

What is a TBA trade, and why is settlement operationally hard?

A To-Be-Announced (TBA) trade is a forward contract on Agency mortgage-backed securities where the specific pools are announced shortly before settlement. Unlike equities that settle T+1, TBA trades settle on a single forward date each month — so a trade can stay open for 30 to 60 days while the underlying value moves, which is why allocation, good-delivery validation, and daily margining are so operationally intensive.

How does AFS help with FINRA Rule 4210 and TMPG margin requirements?

Forward-settling Agency MBS trades are subject to TMPG best practices and FINRA Rule 4210, which require counterparties to exchange variation margin and mark positions to market daily. TBA Mortgage Master provides the daily mark-to-market data firms need to margin their TBAs and respond to capital calls on time — helping avoid the operational bottlenecks that can trigger a forced liquidation — without a separate heavy-duty collateral system.

What does AFS automate across the settlement lifecycle?

The full chain: trade matching (CTM/RTTM), straight pair-offs, SIFMA trade assignments (including AOT), Tradeweb round robins, FICC EPN pool allocations validated against the agency pool universe, SWIFT-compliant settlement reporting, and daily network reconciliation across counterparties.

Who uses AFS — buy-side, sell-side, or both?

Both. Asset managers running from under 100 to over 500,000 trades a month, primary and regional dealers clearing $1 billion to $180 billion monthly, and the custodian banks that settle alongside them — all on one network.

What integrations does AFS support?

OMS/EMS such as BlackRock Aladdin and Charles River; S&P Global thinkFolio; Bloomberg; FICC/DTCC; ICE Mortgage Technology and Black Knight/eMBS pool data; Tradeweb; and connectivity via CTM/RTTM, FIX, SWIFT, and a flexible API. See the integrations directory.

Is AFS secure and certified?

AFS is hosted on Microsoft Azure and is independently certified to ISO 27001 (recertified annually, audited by A-LIGN) and aligned to ISO 22301 for business continuity. See Security & Compliance.

The settlement layer for Agency MBS operations.

Manual MBS operations don’t scale — and they fail at the worst time.

Keyed trade by trade

One miss = a fail

Capped at human speed

2–3× the headcount

One network. The entire lifecycle, automated.

Run it automatically. Step in by exception.

Pays for itself in months, not years.

Ops FTEs per dealer desk

Fewer settlement fails

Match to reporting

Average 2-year ROI

Built for both sides of the trade — and the custodians between.

Asset Managers

Dealers

Custodian Banks

Sits inside the stack you already run.

What automation looks like in production.

MBS operations questions, answered.

See your MBS operations run themselves.