White Paper: Reading And Processing Checks

As much as credit cards and digital wallets have tried to take over, checks are still a very prevalent and practical way to make payments and financial transactions.  However, just because consumers and businesses are still relying on traditional, paper-based financial transactions doesn't mean that technology can't streamline deposits and improve customer satisfaction.  Many ATMs now accept checks and automatically read the values, and some banks are rolling out apps for making deposits straight from your smart phone or tablet, saving a trip to the bank or ATM altogether.  How are financial institutions implementing these features?  And what benefits are there for other businesses not in the financial sector?

Opportunities are ripe for software developers armed with the proper tools at their disposal.  In fact, an increasing number of companies across banking, insurance and retail industries are already capitalizing on these opportunities.  Successful applications must implement a variety of document imaging technologies, so not just any software development kit (SDK) will fit the bill. 

At a minimum, a viable SDK will need Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to quickly and accurately extract the text from each pertinent field from images of checks captured with scanners and mobile devices.  Furthermore, advanced image processing such as Deskew and Perspective Correction will go a long way in improving the accuracy and detection rates.  Lastly, the toolkit will need to be reliable and easy to use in order to make the investment worthwhile, making the application both easier to program and get deployed to the market more rapidly.

Please log in or register below to read the full article.