A Prototype for Brazilian Bankcheck Recognition

This paper describes a prototype for Brazilian bankcheck recognition. The description is divided into three topics: bankcheck information extraction, digit amount recognition and signature verification. In bankcheck information extraction, our algorithms provide signature and digit amount images free of background pattern and bankcheck printed information. In digit amount recognition, we dealt with the digit amount segmentation and implementation of a complete numeric character recognition system involving image processing, feature extraction and neural classification. In signature verification, we designed and implemented a static signature verification system suitable for banking and commercial applications. Our signature verification algorithm is capable of detecting both simple, random and skilled forgeries. The proposed automatic bankcheck recognition prototype was intensively tested by real bankcheck data as well as simulated data providing the following performance results: for skilled forgeries, 4.7% equal error rate; for random forgeries, zero Type I error and 7.3% Type II error; for bankcheck numerals, 92.7% correct recognition rate.