How the Docutain Photo Payment SDK is shaping the future of digital payments

By Marvin Frankenfel, CPO of Docutain & Docutain SDK at INFOSOFT Informations- und Dokumentationssysteme GmbH

The way people initiate payments is fundamentally changing. What once required manual data entry, lengthy forms, or back-office processing is increasingly reduced to a single action: taking a photo within just a second.

Technologies like the Docutain Photo Payment SDK are at the center of this transformation. By combining AI, computer vision, and on-device processing, photo-based payment workflows set new standards for speed, accuracy, security, and compliance. These technologies will not only optimize payments but redefine financial interactions across banking and fintech ecosystems.

The current state of payment workflows

Despite rapid digitization, many payment workflows still suffer from structural inefficiencies such as the manual data entry of invoices, IBANs, amounts, and references into payment forms. This consequently leads to higher error rates and thus, more failed payments due to manual and flawed data entry. The processing takes longer and more workforce is bound to enable payment in the end.

Mobile payments have improved access, but the process of payment data entering the system and getting processed remains a major bottleneck. This is where AI-powered image capture and automated data extraction change the equation.

Mobile photo payment shows significant market potential increase on a global level. A German study shows that nearly 50% of banking app users are familiar with the feature, and one-third uses it several times a month, which also plays a crucial role for the retention of mobile banking app users.

What is the Docutain Photo Payment SDK?

The Docutain Photo Payment SDK enables app providers to integrate ready-to-use photo payment functionality into existing apps for Android, iOS, Windows or cross-platform. With the Photo Payment SDK it is possible to capture payment information directly from photos of documents such as invoices, payment slips, checks, or EPC QR codes.

Key capabilities

• AI-based document detection and cropping
• Automatic extraction of payment-relevant data (amount, recipient, IBAN, reference)
• High-accuracy OCR powered by computer vision
• On-device processing options for enhanced privacy
• Seamless integration into mobile and desktop applications

The growing role of on-device processing

In the German speaking area exists a huge data safety problem concerning mobile photo payment. All solutions currently in use to do photo payment in banking apps are server-based solutions. This means that the user takes a photo of the invoice to be paid, which is sent to an external server to do a full analysis of the invoice’s content, so that the relevant payment information will be sent back. Consequently, the photo payment solution providers have insights into all the invoices scanned, meaning information from millions of customers about what they buy, where they buy, what diseases they might suffer and much more. Most of the time this information is stored for a month or even longer and will be used for training purposes.

As this presents a huge data safety risk, the Docutain Photo Payment SDK revolutionizes the photo payment market by providing an SDK that runs on the respective device only, 100% offline.

This means that sensitive financial image data never leaves the user’s device and results in lower latency, as results are available immediately, without any risk of server crashes or interceptions. Moreover, offline capabilities enable payment preparation without any connectivity.

This results in many positive implications for banks, fintech companies, and end customers at the same time:

Implications for banks of automated on-device data processing

• Faster payment initiation and processing
• Reduced operational costs through automation
• Improved mobile banking experiences leading to increased usage
• Easier integration with legacy systems via SDK-based approaches
• Lower compliance costs and reduced regulatory risk

Implications for fintech platforms of automated on-device data processing

• Faster time-to-market with ready-made SDKs
• Reduced backend complexity
• Scalable document-based payment flows
• Support for new use cases like invoice-to-pay

Benefits for end users of automated on-device data processing

• Fewer errors and failed payments
• Faster transactions thanks to real-time processing
• Minimal effort: scan, review, confirm
• Greater trust due to local data processing

Use cases of Docutain Photo Payment SDK

Right after the Docutain Photo Payment SDK publication, banks and companies from the financial sector became customers as they were looking for on-device solutions that do not work server-based and therefore come with high data safety standards. In many cases, already existing server solutions were replaced with the Docutain solution, providing the same or even superior data extraction quality and no data protection issues. This was the case for Star Finanz GmbH, who integrated the Docutain SDK into their apps StarMoney and SFirm as well as 1822direkt banking, a subsidiary of Frankfurter Sparkasse.

Besides mobile banking, the Docutain SDK is used for high-quality document scanning and QR code scanning purposes, OCR and data extraction in transportation and logistics, retail, healthcare, insurance, software development and more around the world.

The foundation was laid with the Docutain Scanner app, which was launched for private customers in the App Store and Google Play Store in 2018. Since then, the Docutain app has a global multi-million user base working with the scan and document management app daily. This also ensures that the functionalities of the Docutain SDK are optimized and trained daily for years in the Docutain app. In consequence, the Docutain SDK always provides state-of-the-art scanning and OCR functionality, which is used in the Docutain app at the same time.

AI’s role in shaping the industry: a visual future for payments

The Docutain Photo Payment SDK illustrates where the payment industry is headed: visual, intelligent, secure, and user centric.

As AI and computer vision further mature and edge processing becomes standard, photo-based payment workflows will become basic requirements. For banks, fintechs, and end users alike, this shift promises faster transactions, lower risk, and better experiences across the financial ecosystem.

Security and compliance, paired with an intuitive usage and are no longer afterthoughts but key product differentiators.

More information on the Docutain SDK: https://sdk.docutain.com

More information on the Docutain Scanner App: https://www.docutain.de

Docutain Scanner app for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.infosoft.docutain  

Docutain Scanner app for iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/pdf-scanner-app-ocr-docutain/id1416707024