A method for identifying attributes for transaction messages exhibiting technical decline factors includes: storing transaction messages, each being formatted based on one or more standards and including a plurality of data elements including a first data element configured to store a response code; storing a plurality of attribute correspondences, each including a correspondence between a transaction attribute and data element value for a specific data element; executing a first query to identify a subset of transaction messages where the response code is one of a predetermined set of values; executing a second query to associate, for each transaction message, one or more transaction attributes based on data element values in the message and the attribute correspondences; identifying one or more transaction groups, each group corresponding to at least one transaction attribute and including transaction messages of the subset associated with each corresponding transaction attribute.