The MATCH list, Mastercard’s Member Alert to Control High-risk Merchants and once known as the Terminated Merchant File, is a shared database of merchants whose accounts were terminated for cause. Acquirers are required to check it during underwriting and to add merchants they terminate, choosing from a set of reason codes that cover fraud, excessive chargebacks, transaction laundering and more. Listings remain for five years.
Why it matters
A MATCH entry is close to a processing death sentence in the mainstream market, because most acquirers decline listed merchants on sight. But it is not absolute: some acquirers will underwrite specific reason codes at a price, and early removal has three narrow doors, a wrong or erroneous listing, a remediated PCI failure under code 12, and identity theft under code 14. Only the acquirer that placed the listing can change it; Mastercard takes no merchant appeals. What a listed merchant should never do is hide the history on a new application; that is a fresh termination waiting to happen.