Not every merchant account termination results in a MATCH list placement, but terminations for the most common reasons do. Excessive chargebacks, fraud, and acceptable use policy violations that fall within Mastercard's defined reporting categories require the terminating processor to file a MATCH report within a defined window after the termination. Once filed, the report adds the merchant and its principals to the MATCH database, and that listing is visible to every acquiring bank that performs a standard merchant account review for the next five years.
For merchants whose termination triggers a MATCH list placement, the consequence extends well beyond the loss of the original processor relationship. The MATCH listing means that the closed merchant account payment processor problem is no longer a bilateral issue between the merchant and one processor. It becomes a market-wide flag that the entire conventional acquiring bank system has access to and that most will act on by declining new merchant account applications. 27 Blockchain's payment processing for terminated merchant accounts is specifically designed for this situation, providing a payment infrastructure that does not involve acquiring bank review and does not check the MATCH list before the merchant can begin processing transactions.
