As part of the installment loan application at the PoS, it is necessary for a legible copy of the customer's ID is taken and sent to the bank via our system.
In Self-Service, the customer does this himself with his smartphone, in Merchant-Service this takes place on the merchant's device.
The ID card images are read by us using OCR technology provided by our partner WebID. The automatically recognized data is then automatically pre-filled in the following application form.
In order for the automatic ID recognition to work, you have to pay attention to a few things when taking the photos, which we will describe in detail below.
Device Requirements
In Self-Service, the customer uses his own smartphone - the requirements are usually always met, since the vast majority of smartphones are equipped with a good to very good camera with more than sufficient resolution. Additionally, the ID card can be photographed very closely and if the lighting conditions are not suitable, the customer can easily walk a few meters away.
Basically, all kinds of devices, from tablets to laptops or stationary computers, can be used in Merchant-Service - the simplest way is to take the ID card photos with a tablet, since they have a decent camera on the back and a high-resolution photo can be taken without any additional equipment.
Unfortunately, the front cameras installed in laptops are only suitable to a very limited extent for the OCR recognition. Theoretically, it is possible to take usable pictures, but it requires a steady hand and is relatively cumbersome.
Therefore, we recommend the usage of a USB document camera for laptops as well as for stationary computers (compact devices with an adjustable camera arm are particularly suitable). The use of such a camera has the advantage that, in addition to ID cards, any further documents that may be necessary, such as proof of earnings, can also easily be captured, so that this part of the application process can also be completed directly by scanning the documents with the camera (you no longer need a scanner and you also face fewer issues in terms of data protection law, since the documents are sent directly from the camera to our tool without saving the pictures anywhere on your device).
If you as a merchant do not have a camera on your device and you don't want to buy a camera, you can read the ID cards using a scanner if necessary. If you do so, please note the following:
Make sure to capture the scan in color.
Set the scanner to the highest possible resolution (ideally 600dpi) - the resolution normally used to scan or copy printed DIN A4 documents is not sufficient in terms of quality for OCR recognition!
Do not forget to delete the images from the device once the financing contract has been fully concluded.
Common Mistakes: This must be taken into account when taking pictures
1. Before taking pictures or scans: Which ID documents can actually be used?
Before you upload or scan any document, you have to choose between "ID card" and "Passport". With ID cards you get two upload fields for the front and back, for the passport only one, since there is no back.
If you select "ID card":
Only upload ID cards that were issued in an EU country - ID cards from other countries are not accepted.
If the customer has foreign nationality (Non-EU), or currently does not have a valid ID card for other reasons, we need the passport instead - this must then be uploaded under "Passport".
Other officially issued cards with front and back can not be used to replace the ID card or passport - Documents like driving licences or residence permits can NOT be uploaded.
Also as an addition to an ID card or passport, other documents such as residence permits or proof of residence, which Openbank may require from you in addition to a passport, have no place at this point in the process and should not be uploaded at this point - instead, please upload this information to the transaction overview after sending the request.
If you select "Passport":
Take a head-on photo/scan of the page containing the photo and upload it.
The origin and language of the passport does not matter as long as the passport has not expired - all international passports are accepted.
Please note that Openbank usually requires additional documents if you have selected "Passport" and not "ID card", as the passport usually does not contain an address - for customers from EU countries a simple proof of the customer's address is sufficient, for all other countries you need the electronic residence permit or other proof of the customer's work or residence permit.
You can not upload these other proofs such as a residence permit at this point in the process. Only a picture of the passport is required here - instead, please upload it to the transaction overview after sending the request.
2. Exposure:
The images are most machine-readable if they
are shot in a well/evenly illuminated place,
but without flash or direct light, as this creates shadows and reflections on the images.
If pictures are too dark, the OCR cannot read any data from the photo.
3. Picture Quality:
If the pictures are blurry, shaky or generally of poor quality, the OCR cannot recognize any data either. Therefore,
use a camera with good resolution (ideally 1920 x 1080 or larger) or a scanner with > 600 dpi.
make sure the camera is focused on the ID, when using a smartphone or tablet
keep the tablet as still as possible (if possible, support your hand or elbow, or place the device on a holder).
Please keep in mind that machines are more sensitive to blurry text than humans - a slightly blurry image that is reasonably legible to the human eye, but can be too blurry for OCR to read.
The blurrier the image, the higher is the likelihood that similar looking characters (e.g. 0 and O or 1 and 7) will be mixed up by the OCR.
4. Angles:
If possible, please try to hold the camera in a straight line parallel to the ID card. The tolerance of the OCR for angled pictures (regardless of whether they are horizontal or vertical) is only 10° - accordingly documents with a clearly recognizable slant can usually not or only partially be read.
This also works better if you support yourself or place the device, if available, on a suitable holder.
5. Edges:
Try to take the picture as close as possible so that the ID card takes up the majority of the picture (approx. 70%-80%), but stay far enough from the ID so that nothing is cut off and all four edges and corners of the ID card are still included in the picture.
6. Background:
For a high detection rate it is also important that
the background color contrasts with the ID card (light documents are better on dark background and vice versa, avoid a background of the same color).
the background is not too restless (ideally empty solid area without any objects in the picture)
no objects or fingers protrude into the picture (if possible, always put ID cards down and do not hold them in your hands, otherwise parts of the ID card will almost always be covered by your hand)
The General Rule:
If you uploaded a photo but not a single field such as name or ID number was pre-filled in the application process, it can be assumed that the OCR did not recognize the ID and the quality of the image is poor.
In general, our application tool allows you to continue - however, in such cases we recommend jumping back to the ID card upload step, delete the stored images by clicking on the x and trying again.