LTB

Legal

We have been placed on the MATCH list.

MATCH (Mastercard's Member Alert to Control High-Risk Merchants, and TMF in Visa's terminology) is a database of terminated merchants that acquirers check at onboarding. A listing is added by the terminating acquirer under one of a defined set of reason codes, remains visible for five years, and applies to the company, its principals, and their identifiers. Applications elsewhere are then declined at screening, before any underwriting judgement is made.

Two things about the mechanism matter. There is no central appeal body: only the acquirer that added the listing can remove or amend it, which makes the removal question a matter of correspondence and evidence with that acquirer. And listings are frequently coded wrongly: excessive chargebacks recorded as fraud, a voluntary or negotiated closure recorded as a violation. The reason code, not the listing alone, determines how other acquirers read it.

Most merchants only learn of the listing indirectly, from repeated declines, because notification is not consistently given.

How LTB Resolves It

LTB first establishes what is actually recorded and under which reason code, then assesses whether the listing was correctly applied on the terminating acquirer's own documented grounds. Where it was not (a miscoded reason, a closure that was negotiated, a ratio measured against the wrong period) the practice makes the case for correction or removal directly to that acquirer, acting for the client in the EU and through local counsel elsewhere.

Where the listing is correct, the honest work is different: assembling a remediation record (resolved disputes, corrected billing, a strengthened AML and refund framework) and placing the merchant relationship with an acquirer in LTB's network that underwrites listed merchants on their current facts. LTB does not conceal a listing from an acquirer, and no legitimate practice can promise its deletion.

Questions

Frequently Asked

Only by the acquirer that entered it, and in practice only where it was incorrectly applied or incorrectly coded. That is the first thing established, because it determines whether the work is a challenge or a placement.

Yes, with acquirers that underwrite listed merchants individually. It depends on the reason code, the remediation evidence, and terms agreed in advance, usually a reserve.

Begin With a Confidential Conversation

Whether you were referred to LTB or found the practice directly, the first conversation is confidential and without obligation.

Request a Confidential Consultation