Identifying partial string matches

[Guest]

I'm relatively new to all this, I need some help.
Here is what I'm trying to do.
I received a list of bank names that I need to see if we have coverage in
our database. I'm not getting that many matches because of abbreviations used
etc, there are few that are exact matches. I want to see if I can find
partial matches, that maybe were just entered diffently. Is there a simple
way to compare to tables where there is only a partial string match?

 

[Guest]

Yes and No. If things are standardized, you might be able to come up with a
list of abbreviations that will match. However if things are willy-nilly, you
might be fighting a losing battle.

However don't banks have something like a routing number? If this data is
included, that could prevent the need to go by bank names which often change
anyway.

 

[John W. Vinson]

I'm relatively new to all this, I need some help.
Here is what I'm trying to do.
I received a list of bank names that I need to see if we have coverage in
our database. I'm not getting that many matches because of abbreviations used
etc, there are few that are exact matches. I want to see if I can find
partial matches, that maybe were just entered diffently. Is there a simple
way to compare to tables where there is only a partial string match?

What are some examples of the data that you need to work with? As Jerry says,
this can be difficult: human pattern recognition can see that "W-Fargo" is
probably the same as "Wells Fargo Bank" but computers are much too stupid to
do so!

John W. Vinson [MVP]