Mastercard International Incorporated

Steve Oshry

Justin X Howe

Gary Randall Horn

Walter Francis Lo Faro

Anita Christine Galliani

A computer-implemented method of maintaining continuity of transaction data associated with a merchant within a payment card network includes identifying new merchant IDs and associated new merchant information from a database, the new merchant IDs and associated new transactions generated after a predetermined timestamp; and identifying discontinued merchant IDs and associated discontinued merchant information from the database, the discontinued merchant IDs associated only with older transactions generated before the predetermined timestamp and thus appearing to have been discontinued after the predetermined timestamp. The method further includes linking a new merchant ID to a discontinued merchant ID based on continued loyalty of payment card holders, the linked pair of new merchant and discontinued merchant ID having common payment card accounts associated therewith, thereby maintaining continuity of transaction data associated with the merchant corresponding to the linked pair of new and discontinued merchant IDs.

Merchant continuity correction using cardholder loyalty information

Determining whether two merchant location database entries are describing the same merchant location. A subject merchant location database entry and comparison candidate merchant location database entries include a DBA name field, a street address field, and one or more additional descriptive fields descriptive of one or more predetermined characteristics of the respective merchant location. The subject merchant location database entry is compared to a set populated with candidate merchant location database entries, candidates having a predetermined minimum textural similarity with the subject merchant location database entry on the basis of each entry's DBA name field or street address field. The subject merchant location database entry is compared with each of the candidate database entries on the basis of the one or more additional descriptive fields, and a logistic regression is performed using the results of the comparing, in order to calculate a probability that the database entries refer to the same merchant location.

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Bronxville, NY, United States of America

Steve Oshry