Overview

The scoring rule MC Match Lookup identifies if another acquirer has terminated a merchant in the past and the reason for said termination, to help with onboarding or termination decisions.

What is The Mastercard MATCH List?

The Mastercard MATCH list, previously known as the Terminated Merchant File (TMF), is a detailed list of businesses that have had one or more merchant accounts terminated by their processor or acquiring bank.

Individuals and Businesses are added to the MATCH list for violating card brand requirements or other illicit activities.

Acquirers must use the MATCH database to inquire about merchants before entering into agreements, and they are required to add terminated merchants to the list under specific circumstances.

Scoring Rule Entity Details

Scoring Rule Entities identify which types of data (Owner, Control Person, Banking, Business, etc.) are supported for this scoring rule. The supported entities are listed below:

Business: 1
Owner(s): 1-4
Control Person(s): 1-5

When you run a check on an Owner or Control Person it always runs a check on the business information simultaneously.

Interpreting the Scoring Rule

Review Groups: Number of match records that met or exceeded points thresholds for Group 2
Decline Groups: Number of match records that met or exceeded points thresholds for Group 1
Total Number of Matches: Number of match records that met or exceeded points thresholds across the groups (Review Group + Decline Group = Total Number of Matches)
Score: MATCH Lookup does not generate score because if the result meets the set threshold, the scoring rule is going to flag and prevent any auto approvals since it's a key factor. It either meets the level of concern or not, not a score-able value that gets weighted.
Flag: Group 1 is used to trigger Decline Flags, and Group 2 is used to trigger Review Flags, but only when there is a total score of 99 for the sum of codes returned by MATCH.

Output Fields: the list of merchants that met or exceeded points thresholds across the groups with details such as Added By Acquirer ID, Termination Reason Code, Termination Reason Description ...

Scoring Rule Logic

Logic Type

Lookup Table

The API can return numerous results that in many cases are false positives. With ScanX, we put together a lookup table that only bring those records that meet the set threshold.

key: a data field that sent to MATCH (e.g. DBA Name or Legal Name ...)
group: indicating the group that assigned to a specific key, either group 1 or group 2
weight_value: the threshold assinged to a specific key, that can be range from 0 to 100
type: either partial or exact depending on the response from MATCH for each field submitted to the service

Group 1 is used to trigger Decline Flags, and Group 2 is used to trigger Review Flags, but only when there is a total score of 99 for the sum of codes returned by MATCH which are then applied to the scoring table shown above (MATCH_Groups).

The default logic triggers a DECLINE Flag if there is an EXACT match for:

Business Tax ID
Individual Tax ID
Business Legal Name
Business DBA
Business Website

Example

The API can return numerous results. Let’s assume that for the first result returned, the API returns:

Merchant Tax ID: Exact Match
Principal SSN: Exact Match
Other fields: No Match

There is a total weighted score of 200 for Group 1 (Value of 100 for SSN and 100 for Tax ID). Since this is greater than 100, the decline flag for Group 1 is ON.

How to Adjust the Lookup Table

Overtime, you may want to refine how MATCH flag to better beneficial your Underwriter during the underwriting process. You can look into adjusting the MATCH lookup table.

There are three lookup tables used for the MATCH scoring rule but only the MATCH_Groups is meant for adjustments. The other tables shouldn't be touched for any reason.

We also recommend to only touch two columns from the MATCH_Groups table:

group
weighted_value