Check Cashing and Money Transfer ID Capture with PDF417

The Identity Data Problem for check cashing and money transfer

Money service businesses record sender and customer identity on many small transactions, and manual entry slows every visit. Teams also need to keep a readable barcode separate from a verified person or authentic card; mixing the two creates compliance and product risk.

Deterministic Barcode Parsing with Human Confirmation

Decode the presented license or ID card, pre-fill the transaction record, and route unreadable cards to manual entry. StructOCR’s PDF417 API decodes the barcode on the back of US driver licenses and state ID cards and parses the AAMVA record without asking a generative model to reconstruct unreadable values. Both licenses and non-driver state ID cards are accepted; document_kind records which one was presented. Recordkeeping and reporting thresholds are set by regulators and enforced by the business, not by the API.

Workflow Applications

Server-Side PDF417 Integration

Send the complete card-back image from a protected backend. This example selects fields relevant to check cashing and money transfer and treats HTTP 422 as a retake or review state.

import base64
import os
import requests

with open("card-back.jpg", "rb") as image_file:
    image = base64.b64encode(image_file.read()).decode("ascii")

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.structocr.com/v1/driver-license-pdf417",
    headers={"x-api-key": os.environ["STRUCTOCR_API_KEY"]},
    json={"img": image},
    timeout=30,
)

if response.status_code == 422:
    body = response.json()
    print("Retake or review:", body.get("error"), body.get("capture_issue"))
else:
    response.raise_for_status()
    data = response.json()["data"]
    print("given_names:", data.get("given_names"))
    print("surname:", data.get("surname"))
    print("document_number:", data.get("document_number"))
    print("address:", data.get("address"))

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "type": "drivers_license",
    "document_kind": "id_card",
    "source": "pdf417",
    "country_code": "USA",
    "region": "CA",
    "document_number": "SAMPLE1234",
    "surname": "SAMPLE",
    "given_names": "ALEX MORGAN",
    "first_name": "ALEX",
    "middle_name": "MORGAN",
    "sex": "X",
    "date_of_birth": "1990-01-15",
    "date_of_issue": "2025-01-15",
    "date_of_expiry": "2030-01-15",
    "address": "100 EXAMPLE AVE",
    "city": "SAMPLE CITY",
    "postal_code": "00000",
    "vehicle_class": null,
    "restrictions": null,
    "endorsements": null,
    "document_discriminator": "SAMPLE-DISCRIMINATOR",
    "issuer_identification_number": null,
    "aamva_version": 10,
    "jurisdiction_version": 0
  }
}