Ask HN: What technology/APIs do banks use to read and process cheques?
Hi guys,
I've done some assorted googling on terms like "bank image processing API", "image processing API", "bank cheque reader" and so on...
Unfortunately, I haven't found a satisfactory answer. Has anyone here developed using a tool like this, or know anything about it? I'd love to know how this works because: A. I think the technology is fascinating and has the potential to be utilized in a variety of applications B. I've recently gotten into bowling, and would love to build a simple app that lets you take pictures (or scan) your bowling score and do some fancy stuff with it (of all the uses, this is what I want to do... ;)
Thanks! I don't know much about check processing but I used to work for the company that built the system the USPS uses to read addresses on envelopes (both machine printed and hand-written). Many years of research and development went into that system financed either directly by USPS funding to academia or through performance improvement contracts with industry. Over 10-20 years the systems went from being able to read only a fraction of the mail to the point where today they have practically replaced manual address keying. There is probably a similar story behind check reading systems. My impression is that although there are a number of commercially available OCR applications their performance is far from that of specialized proprietary systems such as those used by the USPS and banks.