MATCH List (TMF)
MATCH (Mastercard’s Member Alert to Control High-risk Merchants), often called the Terminated Merchant File or TMF, is a shared database acquirers check before onboarding a new merchant. A listing flags that a prior acquirer terminated the business, usually for excessive chargebacks, fraud, or a card-scheme violation.
A MATCH listing typically stays visible to acquirers for 5 years, and most mainstream acquirers decline on sight, cutting your realistic applicant pool by roughly 70-80% for that period. Removal is not something any consultancy can broker; the path forward is a listed-merchant-friendly acquirer, not an erased record.
Chargeback ratio is the share of transactions disputed by cardholders against total transaction count in a given month.
An acquirer is the bank or financial institution that processes card payments on a merchant’s behalf, settling funds from the card networks into the merchant’s account.
Offboarding is a bank or acquirer’s process for closing an existing account, typically triggered by a compliance review, a policy change on the client’s sector, or a ratio breach, rather than a specific fraud finding.
Underwriting is the risk-assessment process a bank, EMI, or acquirer runs on an applicant before approval: verifying ownership, source of funds, transaction history, and sector-specific risk factors against the institution’s published or internal risk appetite.