Технология распознавания символов MICR и её применение в банковской сфере.

Character recognition technology

Magnetic ink character recognition code, known in short as MICR code, is a character recognition technology used mainly by the banking industry to streamline the processing and clearance of cheques and other documents. MICR encoding, called the MICR line, is at the bottom of cheques and other vouchers and typically includes the document type indicator, bank code, bank account number, cheque number, cheque amount (usually added after a cheque is presented for payment), and a control indicator. The format for the bank code and bank account number is country specific. The technology allows MICR readers to scan and read the information directly into a data collection device. Unlike barcode and similar technologies, MICR characters can be read easily by humans. MICR encoded documents can be processed much faster and more accurately than conventional OCR encoded documents.

The ISO standard ISO 2033:1983, and the corresponding Japanese Industrial Standard JIS X 9010:1984 (originally JIS C 6229–1984), define character encodings for OCR A, OCR B and E 13B.

There are two major MICR fonts in use: E 13B and CMC 7. There is no particular international agreement on which countries use which font. In practice, this does not create particular problems as cheques and other vouchers do not usually flow out of a particular jurisdiction. The E 13B font has been adopted as an international standard in ISO 1004 1:2013, and is the standard in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, as well as Central America and much of Asia, besides other countries. For EBCDIC, IBM code page 1001 encodes digits in their usual EBCDIC locations, transit as 0xDB, on us as 0xEB, amount as 0xCB, and dash as 0xFB. IBM code page 1032 extends code page 1001 by adding alternative encodings for transit at 0x5C, 0x7A and 0xC1, on us at 0x4C, 0x61 and 0xC3, amount at 0x5B, 0x5E and 0xC2 and dash at 0x60, 0x7E and 0xC4, in addition to a zero width space at 0x5A. These alternative representations were added for interoperability with Siemens and Océ printers.

MICR characters are printed on documents in one of the two MICR fonts, using magnetizable (commonly known as magnetic) ink or toner, usually containing iron oxide. In scanning, the document is passed through a MICR reader, which performs two functions: magnetization of the ink, and detection of the characters. The characters are read by a MICR reader head, a device similar to the playback head of a tape recorder. As each character passes over the head, it produces a unique waveform that can be easily identified by the system. MICR readers are the primary tool for cheque sorting and are used across the cheque distribution network at multiple stages. For example, a merchant will use a MICR reader to sort cheques by bank and send the sorted cheques to a clearing house for redistribution to those banks. Upon receipt, the banks perform another MICR sort to determine which customer's account is charged and to which branch the cheque should be sent on its way back to the customer. However, many banks no longer offer this last step of returning the cheque to the customer. Instead, cheques are scanned and stored digitally. Sorting of cheques is done as per the geographical coverage of banks in a nation.

Before the mid 1940s, cheques were processed manually using the Sort A Matic or Top Tab Key method. The processing and cheque clearing was very time consuming and was a significant cost in cheque clearance and bank operations. As the number of cheques increased, ways were sought for automating the process. Standards were developed to ensure uniformity in financial institutions. By the mid 1950s, the Stanford Research Institute and General Electric Computer Laboratory had developed the first automated system to process cheques using MICR. The same team also developed the E 13B MICR font. "E" refers to the font being the fifth considered, and "B" to the fact that it was the second version. The "13" refers to the 0.013 inch character grid. The trial of MICR E 13B font was shown to the American Bankers Association (ABA) in July 1956, which adopted it in 1958 as the MICR standard for negotiable documents in the United States. ABA adopted MICR as its standard because machines could read MICR accurately, and MICR could be printed using existing technology. In addition, MICR remained machine readable, even through overstamping, marking, mutilation and more. The first cheques using MICR were printed by the end of 1959. Although compliance with MICR standards was voluntary in the United States, it had been almost universally adopted in the United States by 1963. In 1963, ANSI adopted the ABA's E 13B font as the American standard for MICR printing, and E 13B was also standardized as ISO 1004:1995. Other countries set their own standards, though the MICR readers and most other equipment were US manufactured. MICR technology has been adopted in many countries, with some variations. The E 13B font was adopted as the standard in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and many other countries. In Australia, the system is managed by the Australian Payments Network. The CMC 7 font was developed in France by Groupe Bull in 1957. It was adopted as the MICR standard in Argentina, France, Italy, and some other European countries. In the 1960s, the MICR fonts became a symbol of modernity or futurism, leading to the creation of lookalike "computer" typefaces that imitated the appearance of the MICR fonts, which unlike real MICR fonts, had a full character set. MICR E 13B is also used to encode information in other applications, such as sales promotions, coupons, credit cards, airline tickets, insurance premium receipts, deposit tickets, and more. E 13b is the version specifically developed for offset litho printing. There was a subtly different called E 13a. Also, there was a rival system named 'Fred' (Figure Reading Electronic Device) which used figures that looked more conventional.