This application is a patent of addition to the Indian Patent Application No. 1138/DEL/2006.
Field of the invention
The instant invention relates to a method and system for implementing Microfinance through camera equipped mobile communication device.
Background of the invention
Wireless devices are being increasingly used in every sphere of life. Long distance communication is rapidly switching to wireless mode. For example, mobile telephony is growing at a rate of more than 100% annually in India. The number of cellular subscribers has already overtaken the number of landline phone subscribers. With such a stupendous growth in cellular growth, a whole gamut of exciting, new applications is being provided over the wireless devices. Some recent applications and services, originally not conceived to be provided on wireless devices such as mobile phones, include- using the phone as a credit card for shopping, internet browsing on the phone, using phone as a business card reader, downloading songs and videos, bluetooth-enabled file sharing, etc. With the advent of next generation of networks, namely 3G and 4G, services like videoconferencing would be the order of the day.
Even with their current offerings, mobile phones and networks can be used to implement innovative applications, which can make a significant positive impact on common man's life. One of the key components of mobile phones is a camera. Camera-equipped phones are most popular today. However, their use has mostly been for mundane activities such as taking pictures and videos and sharing these among users for personal enjoyment. A few business applications, such as Business Card Reader, have also been conceived. However, these are far and few in between.
Wireless telephony has managed to be part of everyday life of not just urban population but also people in rural India. Within the next few years, even the remotest comers would come under the ambit of wireless-communication networks. Rural areas have only started to benefit from wireless telephony.
With the proliferation in wireless-communication devices and networks, exciting new possibilities are being explored in various areas. One such area is Microfinance, which is rapidly making a difference to life of people in rural areas. Microfinance involves providing financial services to poor / very poor people. A number of researches conducted across the world have proven that Microfinance has enabled borrowers to markedly improve their overall living standards, which
includes increased life expectancy, better education, increased income, improved health, better niutrition and health, and so on.
These financial services include microcredit, microloans and microinsurance. The poor people are lent the amount on easy terms. Microfinance is already transforming the life of poor farmers and villagers across the world. However, Microfinance still has to touch the lives of a huge number of people living in far-flung areas.
The banks are very eager to undertake Microfinance, as they see a huge untapped market, with a great potential. However, due to difficulty in reaching the target customers and economic unviability of setting up branches in these areas, most of the banks have not shown great interest in Microfinance. A number of Microfinance Institutions (MFI), which have been the key enabler for the spread of Microfinance in rural areas, also face hindrance in providing their services in far-flung areas.
Accordingly a system is needed to provide individuals access to lending financial institutions, which offer financial services on easy terms and are fully trustworthy. Also, such system may not require any additional investments from financial service providers to set up their branches or extension centers in order to reach target customers, thereby providing a huge cost-benefit.
A system and method is needed to cover Microfinance by wireless-communication networks, which would enable banks to reach their target customers in areas which are covered by the wireless-communication networks. Within a short time span, effectively the banks would have a huge population under its reach for Microfinance.
The cost of facilitating Microfinance through wireless technology involves extremely low cost of operations. In addition, the speed of operations is also much more than the traditional approach.
Objectives and Summary of Instant Invention
It is an objective of the instant invention to obviate the above drawbacks and provide a system and method for implementing Microfinance through wireless network.
. It is another objective of the instant invention to avoid loss of financial documents.
A method is provided for implementing Microfinance through camera equipped mobile communication device, said method comprising capturing plurality of images of a completed
document, capturing an image of the applicant, transmitting said image to a central server, locating and designating means for locating and refining best matching feature points in said images, stitching together the images along with the applicant's image to form a composite image, extracting means for extracting the required text for processing, and transmitting the composite image for further processing.
A system for implementing Microfinance through camera equipped mobile communication device, comprising a mobile device with image capturing means for capturing multiple images of a document, a central server for receiving said images from the mobile device, transmitting means for transmitting said image to a central server, locating and designating means for locating and refining best matching feature points in said images, stitching means for stitching together the images along with the applicant's image to form a composite image, extracting means for extracting the required text for processing, and transmitting means for transmitting the composite image for further processing.
Brief description of the accompanying drawings
Figure 1 describes the system of the instant invention. Detailed description
The instant invention leverages wireles -communication devices such as camera-equipped mobile phones and wireless communication networks.
The user distributes the desired document (10) to people. Such document may be loan application form, form for opening account or any such finance related document Once all the information is filled in - along with the signature or thumb impression of the applicant - a camera-equipped mobile communication device (12) is used to capture the complete application form through a series of images (11). Multiple images .(image 1...image 4) of the application form are clicked because capturing a single image of a large application form results in an image that is not legible enough to be rendered for further processing. The captured images should necessarily be partially overlapping, with some common area between images of two adjacent areas on the application form. The number of images to be captured for a single application form will depend upon the resolution of the device, and the desired legibility.
In an embodiment, a capturing device with high resolution is used so that a single image of a single page of the form will serve the purpose. Images of multiple pages of a document and ancillary documents are captured, image of the applicant is stitched to the document and transmitted over the network for processing of the complete document.
The document images are captured so as to contain discernable data to be extracted. Similarly, images of all other ancillary documents are also captured. The applicant's image (15) IS also captured. Next, all the images of the document as well as applicant's photograph are transmitted (13) through the wireless network to a central server (14), where the images are to be processed.
The server receives all the portions of the document as individual images. These individual images are matched and merged together to form a composite image (16) similar to the original application form.
Once the individual part images are received, adjacent images are stitched by using the following procedure. A large number of (SIFT) feature points are extracted from the two images by using gaussian scale space. SIFT features obtained in one image are matched with those obtained in the other image using K-d trees. For further obtaining the best matching feature points, Slope Refinement technique is used. Matching points are subsequently refined using RANSAC (Random Sample Consensus) algorithm for outliers rejection. Using Adaptive Non-Maximal Suppression (ANMS), for image transformation, spatially distributed matching points are selected. Projective transforms are used for correction in rotation, scaling, shearing or dilations. Images are stitched based on the best matching point. Finally, gradient blending is done for smooth transitioning of the edges present in the area where the two images are stitched.
After a series of operations, individual images are stitched together to form the composite image. The applicant's photograph is also automatically superimposed in a pre-designated area on the final composite document image. The data is extracted from the document and sent ahead for further processing. The composite image, along with the applicant's photograph, is stored (17) together for future reference.
In one embodiment, the user can also send a text message along with the image sent. This text message could contain metadata or further information about the image being sent. This information could be used for multiple purposes such as specifying indexing and positioning data, providing additional information not captured through filled-up form, etc. This would provide further flexibility in ensuring that complete information is received.
The system is also capable of immediately indicating back to the person sending the images over the wireless network using a mobile for any erroneous image or insufficient data. The person could immediately click and send a new image or provide the additional information required. Therefore, the system does away with inherent delays involved in the existing processes, wherein only when the entire information is received, it can be checked for accuracy and adequacy.
The server has instructions for locating and designating means for locating and refining best matching feature points in said images, stitching means for stitching together the images along with the applicant's image after removing the overlapped portion to form a composite image, extracting means for extracting the required text for processing, and transmitting means for transmitting the composite image for further processing.
The use of mobile phones and wireless technology for Microfinance can potentially find extensive use in reaching to a large number of poor and very poor people in urban areas. In addition to their existing efforts, banks and Micro Finance institutions could quickly establish existing kiosks such as grocery stores, local shops, and lottery stalls as dissemination points for providing Microfinance and related services using mobile phones as described, and that too at an extremely low cost. This would also eliminate the need of the bank representative to be present, as the same work could be done by the kiosks owners, who are trained by the bank or Microfinance institution for selling Microfinance to the people who visit the kiosk.
The banks also stand to gain in the long run, with their Microfinance clients becoming not just self-sufficient in due course but also becoming potential user of banks' additional products and services such as bank accounts, deposits, etc, in the future. Therefore, banks can build a loyal future customer base. With future developments in the mobile technology, these products and services also could be facilitated through wireless communication networks.
It will readily be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the present invention is not limited to the specific embodiments shown herein. Thus variations may be made within the scope and spirit of the accompanying claims without sacrificing the principal advantages of the invention.

We Claim:
1. A method for implementing Microfmance through camera equipped mobile communication device, said method comprising:
capturing plurality of images of a completed finance document,
capturing an image of the applicant,
transmitting said image to a central server,
extracting and obtaining multiple SIFT feature points in two adjacent images,
refining the matching points
stitching together the images along with the applicant's image to form a
composite image,
extracting required text for processing, and
transmitting the composite image for further processing.
2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said each of said plurality of images has
an overlapping area with the adjacent image(s).
3. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein all the contents of the document are
captured.
4. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the image of the applicant and the
document are sent together to the server.
5. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said SIFT feature points are extracted
from the two images by using gaussian scale space.
6. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein SIFT features obtained in one image are
matched with those obtained in the other image using K-d trees.
7. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein matching feature points are subsequently
refined using RANSAC (Random Sample Consensus) for outliers rejection.
8. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein spatially distributed matching points are
selected using Adaptive Non-Maximal Suppression (ANMS).
9. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein projective transforms are used for
correction in rotation, scaling, shearing or dilations.
10. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein gradient blending is done for smooth
transitioning of the edges present in the area where the two images are stitched
11. A system for implementing Microfinance through camera equipped mobile
communication device, comprising:
a mobile device with image capturing means for capturing multiple images of a document,
a central server for receiving said images from the mobile device, transmitting means for transmitting said image to a central server, means for extracting and obtaining multiple SIFT feature points in two adjacent images,
means for refining the matching points using various algorithms stitching means for stitching together the images along with the applicant's image to form a composite image,
extracting means for extracting the required text for processing, and transmitting means for transmitting the composite image for further , processing.
12. The system as claimed in claim 11, wherein said mobile communication device has
transmitting and receiving means for transmitting the captured images to the
application server.
13. The system as claimed in claim 11, wherein said mobile communication device is
configured to communicate with the server through a mobile communication service.
14. The system as claimed in claim 11, wherein preexisting kiosks are configured for
implementing said system.
15. A method for implementing Microfmance through camera equipped mobile communication device, substantially as herein described with respect to the accompanying drawings.
16. A system for implementing Microfinance through camera equipped mobile communication device, substantially as herein described with respect to the accompanying drawings.