ICR Services — A Promising Technology to Enhance Business Efficiency

Candice Spencer
Shufti Pro
Published in
4 min readMar 28, 2023

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As technology advances, fraudsters are becoming more intelligent to bypass verification procedures and carry out the illicit activity. They are leaving no stone unturned to exploit businesses struggling to make their mark in this modern age. Regulatory authorities have made it mandatory for financial firms to secure their networks since digital platforms pose risks of identity theft and economic offences. Thus, ICR services serve as one of the most effective security options for all businesses in this age of digitisation. The intelligent global document processing market size will achieve a financial worth of around $7.4 billion by 2031, showing a CAGR of 21.7% for the forecast period 2022–2031.

ICR technology can process various handwriting styles & fonts with the help of AI models. The state-of-the-art technology facilitates self-learning with every new data entry. This progressive approach can increase the productivity levels of organisations by producing high-quality output.

Let’s dive deep into how this technology works.

Intelligent Word Recognition — A Short Overview

IWR systems recognise and capture printed and handwritten data and process cursive handwriting. The solution has the potential to capture unstructured information which is highly detailed.

Entrepreneurs must know that the Intelligent Word Recognition system does not replace OCR and ICR recognition because it specializes in processing real-world documents. It quickly identifies various data fields for accurate data entry, automating and meticulously recognising the text.

ICR Services — Gaining Insight into the Technology

Intelligent character recognition is an upgraded version of optical character recognition software. OCR focuses on printed data, whereas ICR services can accommodate different handwriting styles and fonts for the best recognition and accuracy rates.

ICR technology can process a range of the latest handwriting styles and fonts with the support of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). However, traditional paper-based invoice processing costs $2.7 trillion annually, and automation lowered this cost by at least 50% to 80%. Thus, the ICR algorithm upgrades its database with each new data entry, helping the technology predict handwriting styles with high accuracy rates and produce the best quality output.

Understanding the Working Mechanism Behind ICR Technology

ICR technology easily integrates into a system that accepts the handwritten data of users. It quickly scans the information from documentation and extracts data accurately. Following is the summary of the whole process in the context of a bank.

  1. The system asks the end-user to display their ID before the web camera. ICR technology scans the document and extracts the desired information, such as Name and Date of Birth (DoB).
  2. The technology can sometimes ask the user to upload handwritten consent according to the instructions. The digital solution scans and extracts consent data in real time.
  3. Finally, the technology verifies the data and sends the final results to the banking service provider.

The latest digital solution is time-saving and resource-effective for modern-day corporations. In this way, it saves a company’s capital which can be used in other business projects. The system can send the data to an automated data flow system, facilitating businesses via predictive analytics.

Top 5 Use Cases of ICR Technology

ICR services quickly automate data extraction. Over time, businesses started to opt for the system to streamline their workflow. However, manual data entry error rates are usually between 0.55% and 3.6%, with some cases reaching 26.9%. For this reason, experts use it for automated form-filling tasks. Data extraction from structured, unstructured, or cursive handwriting documents has become more accessible. The following are the best applications of the digital solution:

  1. The robotics industry has implemented Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) systems to train its robotics by extracting handwritten training data.
  2. Experts use ICR with Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) to modernise corporate workflow.
  3. ICR technology offers data in electronic forms to support clients worldwide
  4. Banking service providers and other financial firms use ICR for ID document verification to validate their users’ credentials.
  5. ICR facilitates real-time handwritten consent verification for customers.

Top 5 Perks of Using Intelligent Character Recognition Systems

  1. ICR services help industries by automatically interpreting different kinds of fonts and styles.
  2. Artificial Intelligence (AI) backed systems empower the technology by increasing its experience. With each new data entry, the system has better recognition power and accuracy rates.
  3. ICR solution through Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) efficiently extracts the data from structured and unstructured documentation to cater to all business needs.
  4. In modern times, financial firms and the healthcare sector receive vast client data. Using ICR services facilitates experts through instant data extraction.
  5. The cutting-edge intelligent character recognition technology reduces errors during data extraction from free-style notes because some industries cannot afford mistakes in data. In this way, entrepreneurs can boost productivity and achieve business milestones timely.

Concluding Thoughts

The adoption of ICR services also totally depends on the corporate requirements of an enterprise. With this scenario, companies can deal with massive volumes of data daily. The state-of-the-art solution can process structured and unstructured documents for real-time data extraction. Moreover, the combination of Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) with OCR technology can fulfil the needs of some businesses and take them to new heights of success. Hence, the latest digital solution eliminates manual effort and provides high-quality results.

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Candice Spencer
Shufti Pro

Researcher, Fraud Preventer, Traveller, Reader, Writer, Thinker :)