If you want to see a bank customer wince, ask them to manually input a series of long numbers or text strings into online banking systems. Yet even though we are well into the “digital transformation era” and despite the customer turnoff, many bank payments still require such painful manual rekeying of data.

This data can range from simple account numbers to bank routing numbers, tax codes, ID and passport numbers, etc. The list is endless, as are the manual data-entry challenges faced by customers.

ABBYY is promoting an end to this dilemma via a Real-Time Recognition software development kit, or RTR-SDK, that aims to simplify the experience of interacting via mobile phones for banks and many other online businesses.

The new RTR-SDK toolkit allows software developers to build iOS and Android applications that instantly recognise text visible in the viewfinder of mobile phones and overlay the results on the screen in realtime. Such technological capabilities may soon determine whether your business can survive and thrive in the digital era.

Mobile OCR is no mere gimmick, as ABBYY believes it offers clear benefits for companies from customer-facing industries such as banking and insurance.

With RTR-SDK-powered applications, processing payment documents is simplified greatly. The apps can now insert information necessary for a money transfer into the fields of a mobile banking app simply by focusing the smartphone’s camera on payment slips, invoices or other payment documents.

The new technology aims to provide a fast, safe and convenient user experience with full data security. Data such as bank account details, credit card numbers, the card owner’s name or payment amount can be instantly captured, processed and transferred without saving a copy on the device. This is critical for the privacy requirements of banks and insurance companies.

Other applications of Real-Time Recognition could include recognition of data from control panels of consumer devices and appliances which could be immediately recognised and transmitted directly to dealers or manufacturer’s backend systems, saving companies and customers headaches, time and money.

Onboard with ease

ABBYY also believes the new technology holds out promise for a more efficient customer onboarding process that will help small businesses create a killer first impression and turn their customers into advocates. In particular, for front end service providers such as airlines, hotels and car rental companies. Cumbersome processes for registering new customers could be simplified greatly if they could simply point their mobile phone cameras at ID documents and have the data transferred into the companies' systems without leaving a trace on the device.

"Customers are more likely to come back - again and again - if they are “wowed” by what they experience during their first interaction with your business," says Andrey Isaev, vice president of Global SDK business at ABBYY’s International Headquarters.

“Giving control of critical information through RTR SDK 'self-service' feature is a strong call-to-action to persuade your customers to stick with your company. It’s the closest thing to prioritising customer experience and increasing customer satisfaction."

The promised benefits of mobile capture technology like RTR-SDK include:

• Saving valuable time that employees waste on manual data-entry (e.g. when taking payments or completing bookings);
• using apps that allow data transfer without typing will reduce costs for customer service (e.g.  providing information to energy providers by pointing the smartphone at the meter or a quick input of data from an insurance policy when filing an insurance claim)

With support for 63 languages, ABBYY’s RTR-SDK toolkit can provide a simple point and translate service for airport and train station signs, restaurant menus, road or street signs.

Combining RTR SDK with text-to-speech technology could also help visually impaired, elderly people or children interact with their surroundings by simply pointing their mobile phone camera to text in a book, a magazine page or at a street sign and instantly listen to the words converted into an audio format.

“Any small company or startup can now create its own instant data-capture mobile app to make the lives of its customers, and potential customers, easier. For businesses whose processes include activities like data entry into enterprise systems and databases, such apps will significantly reduce cost and human errors,” said Isaev.

For further information contact  ABBYY Australia Phone: (02) 9004 7401 E-mail: sales@abbyy.com.au Web: www.abbyy.com.au