Applications get declined one after another. The wording is always the same and explains nothing: “does not meet our risk policy”. The documents are in order, the turnover is real, and nobody opens an account.
A common reason is an entry in an industry blacklist. Here is what that register is, how to find out whether you are on it, what the reason codes mean, how to get removed, and what to do about accepting payments while the entry stands.
What the MATCH list is
MATCH stands for Member Alert to Control High-risk Merchants. It is a closed database maintained by Mastercard, and in everyday use it is simply called the MATCH list.
The same database used to be known as TMF — the Terminated Merchant File. The name changed, the database did not, and the old abbreviation still appears in correspondence with banks alongside the new one.
Who adds you. The acquirer — the bank or payment company that handled your acceptance. If it terminates the agreement for cause, making the entry is its obligation to the card scheme, not its choice.
Who gets listed. Not only the company: beneficial owners are listed too, meaning individuals. A new company opened by the same owners therefore runs into the same check.
Who can see it. Only scheme members — acquirers and banks. Merchants have no access, there is no public lookup, and services promising an online self-check are not connected to the real database.
How long it stays. Five years from the entry date, then it drops off automatically.
What the MATCH list is not. It is not a credit file and not a debtors’ register: your loans and arrears have nothing to do with it. It is not a government register. And it is not a ban on accepting payments: the entry does not remove your right to trade, it only means every subsequent acquirer will see it when reviewing an application.
Hence the effect that brings people to this article: opening a merchant account suddenly stops working where it used to go through without questions, and nobody names the reason — an acquirer is not obliged to disclose it.
How to find out whether you are listed
There is no public access: a merchant cannot open the database and look themselves up. But it can be established.
- Ask the acquirer that terminated you. It made the entry and must confirm it on a written request. This is the shortest route.
- Ask the one that declined you for a reason. A new provider will not name the database directly, but wording like “based on industry data sources” is a recognisable sign.
- Look at the pattern of refusals. If everyone declines quickly, before even requesting documents, the problem is usually not the documents.
The immediate steps after a shutdown — which papers to request and what to export while you still have access — are in our guide on what to do when a merchant account is declined.
Reason codes: why the reason matters more than the entry
An entry always carries a reason code. The categories differ in severity, and the code determines what there is to discuss with the next acquirer at all.
- Excessive chargebacks. The most common and most fixable case: disputes crossed scheme thresholds.
- Suspected fraud. A heavy category — an entirely different conversation.
- Scheme rule violations. Accepting in a vertical the contract did not allow, for example.
- Breach of the acquirer agreement. From misdescribing the business at onboarding to switching vertical without notice.
The ratio that put you there is the same ratio the card schemes monitor afterwards. What the thresholds are and what follows when they are crossed is in our piece on VAMP guidelines for high-risk merchants.
What acceptance itself includes — routing, a two-provider cascade, recurring billing — is described under payment processing.
Five years: what it means in practice
Waiting five years is not a strategy, but there is no reason to panic either. In practice the entry means two things: applications get looked at more closely, and some providers decline automatically without reviewing.
The entry usually follows a closure attributed to the merchant, so the two questions arrive together. What to do the moment an account is shut is in our piece on what happens when a merchant account was terminated.
How to get removed
The key fact: only the acquirer that made the entry can remove it. Mastercard does not delete it on a merchant’s request — it is not Mastercard’s decision.
- Get written confirmation of the entry and the reason code from the acquirer that terminated the agreement.
- Assemble evidence. If the entry is wrong — documents that disprove the basis. If it is justified — evidence that the cause is gone: a reduced dispute rate, changed processes, contracts with new suppliers.
- File a formal removal request with that same acquirer, in writing, with the evidence attached.
- Do not fan out applications while it is being resolved. Every fresh refusal adds to a record of refusals.
Mistaken entries do happen: a wrong code, a beneficial owner with no part in the breach, an entry made after the merchant itself terminated. Those get removed — but only on documents, and only through whoever made them.
Accepting payments while the entry stands
A business cannot wait five years — and does not have to. What helps.
- Raise it yourself, in the first conversation. The provider will see it anyway, and a merchant who arrives with an explanation looks different from one whose record surfaces during checks.
- Show corrected statistics. A dispute rate that has fallen over recent months is the strongest argument available.
- Be ready for different terms. Higher rate, higher reserve, limits at the start. That is the price of entry, not a punishment.
- Do not look for a provider that “does not check”. One that skips the database skips everything else, and that contract ends in a second closure.
When the entry is cleared, the application starts from scratch — and it is worth submitting a complete one. How that is put together is in our guide to opening a merchant account online.
What we do in this situation
An entry means neither an automatic refusal with us nor automatic approval. The decision is made on the application: we look at the reason code, the documents, the vertical and the processing history. We consider individual solutions for your business — the terms depend on what happened and what has changed since.
Merchant account pricing is published and the same for everyone: MDR 3%–5% depending on the type of business, 0.50 EUR per transaction, T+7 settlement, rolling reserve 10% for 180 days. The full list is on the pricing page.
In short
Refusals without explanation are a reason to check for a MATCH entry. The reason code comes from the acquirer that terminated you, and only that same acquirer can remove it. While it stands, payments can still be accepted — on different terms, and with an honest conversation up front.