29.12.2016

Smart 3D OCR MRZ helps perform tax refund in Japan

Japanese company AlterKnowledge Inc. released a mobile application Smart Detax which is designed to simplify the procedure of preparing consumer tax refund documents. In order to extract data from identification documents in Smart Detax solution an machine-readable zone (MRZ) recognition library is used, which is developed by Smart Engines.

In order to prepare tax refund receipt the cashier shows the identification document of the customer to a camera of a smartphone with Smart Detax application installed. The application performs MRZ recognition in real-time and the data is transfered to a portable receipt printer via WiFi or Bluetooth. The procedure of getting a tax refund receipt starting from scanning an ID document and ending with a receipt printing takes around 3-5 seconds.

AlterKnowledge Inc. CEO Manabu Iwasaki: “Scanning speed and accuracy of Smart 3D OCR MRZ is an innovative application to overturn the concept of a traditional dedicated OCR equipment. For PC and the problem of dedicated OCR devices are aggregated to one stood smartphone device, in duty free business in Japan of the retail in distribution industry, significant operational efficiency and cost savings have been achieved. In the near future, this Smart 3D OCR MRZ is not limited to the duty-free operations, it will be deployed in various OCR operations in Japan.”

Application Smart Detax already used on more than 1,000 smartphone in 700 stores in Japan.

Currently Smart Detax application is available in App Store for iPhone and iPad with iOS version of at least 8.0.