The Mastercard MATCH list: what it is and what it means for a new application

What the MATCH list is

MATCH stands for Mastercard Alert To Control High-risk Merchants; the current system is called MATCH Pro. Mastercard’s developer documentation says it gives an authorised user, in practice an acquirer, the bank that holds merchants’ card-acceptance accounts, information to review before entering into a merchant agreement or a sponsored merchant agreement with a prospective merchant. Mastercard describes MATCH Pro as a mandatory system for Mastercard acquirers.

The database holds records that acquirers report about merchants, and their owners, whose agreements they terminated. The US bank examiners’ handbook on merchant processing, published by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, says MATCH was formerly known as the combined terminated merchant file, which is why many pages call it the TMF list. The same handbook lists checking a new merchant against MATCH, alongside the US Treasury’s sanctions list, among the checks it calls standard industry practice.

Mastercard’s documentation describes MATCH Pro as a system for acquirers. It describes no way for a merchant to search it.

How a record gets on the list

Mastercard’s documentation describes three steps when an acquirer ends an agreement for one of the MATCH reasons:

• Within 5 days of the decision to terminate the merchant, the acquirer submits a record with the merchant’s details, its principal owners (up to five) and the reason code.
• The record is added to MATCH Pro and made available to all other acquirers in real time.
• The acquirer receives a confirmation and a MATCH Pro reference number.

Because the record carries the owners as well as the business, a search can find the owners of a business that applies under a new name.

Visa’s rules have a parallel requirement under the name Terminated Merchant File. In the US and most other Visa regions, an acquirer must add a terminated merchant no later than close of business on the day after the merchant is notified of the intent to terminate, and must list it if terminated for reasons that include, but are not limited to, a conviction for card fraud, excessive counterfeit or unauthorised transactions, laundering, an excessive number of disputes, or identification by Visa’s acquirer monitoring or integrity risk programmes (section 10.10.1.1). From 18 April 2026 Visa’s rules also require acquirers to use an externally managed common terminated merchant database and to list there for 3 years a merchant that violated its agreement and was then terminated for cause (section 10.10.1.2).

The MATCH reason codes

Every MATCH record carries one two-digit reason code. Mastercard’s current API specification lists these values:

Scroll the table to see all columns.

The specification gives the codes and their short names only; codes 02, 07 and 11 are not in the current list. The full definitions sit in Mastercard’s Security Rules and Procedures, which did not open to an automated reader on 18 October 2026, so this guide does not paraphrase them.

The examiners’ handbook adds a caution about how the list is used in practice: it says it is not uncommon for merchants to be placed on the list for technical violations of their merchant agreements, which would not be considered risk-related reasons, or for chargebacks that did not cause the processor a loss.

How far back a search reaches

Mastercard’s documentation says a MATCH Pro inquiry searches for possible matches among merchants added by other acquirers during the past five years. That is a description of the search window. The public documentation does not describe when or how a record is removed, so a statement that listings are deleted after exactly five years goes further than Mastercard’s public pages do.

The search also looks forward. When an inquiry finds no match, MATCH Pro repeats it every day for the next 360 days and emails the inquiring acquirer if another acquirer later adds a merchant that matches. Those retroactive matches are kept for thirty days. Visa’s separate common-database rule uses a 3-year listing period (section 10.10.1.2).

What a possible match means on a new application

A MATCH Pro response reports possible matches and says whether each is exact or phonetic, so a business with a similar name or address can produce a possible match that is not the same merchant. The rule books treat a match as the start of a check, not a decision:

• Visa’s rules require an acquirer that receives a possible match to verify that the listed merchant is the same merchant it asked about, to contact the listing member directly to find out why the merchant was added, and to use the file only as an informational tool in its decision (section 10.10.1.2).
• Mastercard offers acquirers a contact lookup that returns the listing acquirer’s contact details for that kind of follow-up.
• The examiners’ handbook says the inquiring bank should always base its acceptance decision for a new merchant account on its own firsthand investigation and due diligence, with MATCH as the starting point.

A clear search is not the whole check either. From 15 October 2026 Mastercard added New Merchant Insights to MATCH Pro: a merchant risk score and fraud risk signals drawn from Mastercard network history and a scan of the prospective merchant’s online presence, including its website address. The documentation describes these as inputs to the acquirer’s own onboarding decision.

If you believe a record is wrong

A record is added by the acquirer that ended the agreement, so that acquirer is the party that can correct it. Visa’s rules say an acquirer may request deletion of a merchant only if it added that merchant, must immediately request correction when it recognises that it added a merchant in error, and may be liable for another member’s losses if it fails to comply (section 10.10.1.1). Mastercard’s own correction rules are in its Security Rules and Procedures, which this guide could not open.

In practice that means asking the acquirer that ended your agreement, in writing, whether it added a record, which reason code it used, and on what facts. An accurate record stays an accurate record; the rules above concern errors.

What to tell and ask a provider

• Answer questions about earlier processors and terminations accurately. A MATCH search covers the business and up to five owners, and an inaccurate answer is a separate problem from the record itself.
• Ask whether the provider’s acquiring bank will review an application that has a MATCH record, and whether the reason code makes a difference to that bank.
• Ask which extra terms would apply if it does: a reserve, lower processing limits, a shorter review period or a different fee.
• Ask how long the provider expects its underwriting to take when a possible match has to be followed up with the listing acquirer.

On Zolution, the terms in an offer are provider-declared, and the provider decides whether to approve an application. Our payment terms page explains how reserves, limits and fees are set out in an offer.

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