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Card Network Lookup Service

Use the Card Network Lookup Service (CNLS) to query VISA and Mastercard databases of merchants who were terminated.

CNLS queries the VISA and Mastercard databases of terminated merchants:

  • VMSS (Visa Merchant Screening Service)

  • MATCH (Mastercard Alert to Control High-risk Merchants)

The VMSS and MATCH databases contain information about merchant accounts that have been closed by credit card processors around the world for high chargebacks or violations of card brand rules.

CNLS results are delivered to you exactly as they are received from the card brands. Rapyd does not alter these results or interfere with your decision on whether to proceed with onboarding the merchant.

CNLS is relevant to a partner payment facilitator (PayFac).

CNLS Prerequisites

  • Create and assign a unique identifier for the merchant (generated by you).

  • Create and assign a unique identifier for the query request (generated by you).

For details, see Initiate Merchant Query: partner_merchant_reference and partner_query_reference.

Rapyd Wallet for Partners - Prerequisite

As a partner, before creating a wallet for a sub-merchant, you must first complete a CNLS query. The partner_query_reference value from the Retrieve Query Results CNLS response must be used as the cnls_partner_query_reference in the Create Wallet request body.

Searching for a Merchant's Termination History

To find whether a merchant appears in a card network database of terminated merchants:

  1. Initiate a merchant query.

    1. Define the prerequisites. See CNLS Prerequisites.

    2. Run Initiate Merchant Query.

    3. In the response, verify that data.status is IN_PROGRESS.

    4. Proceed to the next step.

  2. Retrieve the query results.

    Completing the query process may take time. Rapyd recommends implementing a polling mechanism for retrieving the results.

    1. Implement a polling mechanism that repeatedly does the following:

      1. Run Retrieve Query Results.

      2. Compare the responses for changed information.

      3. Notify when the value of data.query_info.query_status changes.

    2. Analyze the query results in the response. See Understanding Query Results.

Understanding Query Results

The Retrieve Query Results response include information about different types of matches for the merchant query.

A query match is when your merchant query matches elements of a previous merchant query in the database. This means that the merchant that you looked for shares data with a merchant that was previously searched for.

A registered match is when your merchant query matches elements of a merchant termination registration in the database. This means that an acquirer terminated the contract of a merchant that shares data with the merchant that you looked for.

The data.match_stats object tells you how many matches of each type were found. In this example, the results include one registered match and one query match.

	"match_stats": {
            "registered_match_count": 1,
            "query_match_count": 1
        },

The data.matches object provides details of each match, including the type.

The first parts tells you the database, the type of match, and the data points that match your query, either exactly or partially.

In this example, the VISA network found a registered match where your query exactly matches three fields and partially matches one field.

	"matches": [
            {
                "card_network": "VISA",
                "match_type": "registered match",
                "exact_match": [
                    "merchant.address.city",
                    "merchant.address.postal_code",
                    "merchant.address.country"
                ],
                "partial_match": [
                    "merchant.address.address_line_1"
                ],

In this example, the MASTERCARD network found a query match where your query exactly matches one field.

	{
                "card_network": "MASTERCARD",
                "match_type": "query match",
                "exact_match": [
                    "merchant.address"
                ],
                "partial_match": [],

The data.matches.matched_merchant and data.matches.registration_info objects provide more details.

If you are interested in only one match type, ignore the count and match details of the other type.

CNLS Error Messages

In this section: