With a view to curb forgery in banks R Jayadevan, a professor from Poona Institute of Computer Software, is currently developing an imageprocessing system' for verifying handprinted signatures.
The system will eliminate the need for bank employees to check if a signature is genuine, thus minimising errors. The uniqueness of this software lies in its capability to verify signatures in Hindi and Marathi besides English. The system will be tweaked later and made available in all Indian languages Speaking to TOI, Jayadevan claimed that similar software is used in countries like USA and France, but nobody has worked on languages so far.
The project received funding of Rs 2.4 lakh from the Department of Science and Software (DST) in 2007 for a period of three years. "When an account holder submits a cheque in the bank, the bank authorities check the signature template available with them and verify it with the one on the cheque. The process is manual and the possibility of making an error is quite high. Hence, automation is necessary," Jayadevan said, adding, the system will also verify the cheque number, account number, who has issued it and tally the amount written in words and in figures.
"The biggest challenge in developing this software was to make it available in regional languages. A large part of the country's population signs in the regional language. Hence, making the software language-specific is very important," Jayadevan said.
The software will also help reduce the time taken for clearing cheques, especially, outstation cheques. "Once this software is in place, clearing cheques will be a matter of a few minutes. The bank will secure an image of the cheque and this will be sent to the respective bank for confirmation through e-mail or any other electronic mode, and verification of the same can be sent across in seconds," Jayadevan said.
Jayadevan pointed out that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) plans to adopt the image processing system, which will help its sector-wide implementation. The project has also been submitted to a US-based journal and will be published soon.
(nes appeared in times of India on 5th April 2009)
