What Industries Benefit from Recognition Technologies: Explained by OCR Studio at MWC Barcelona 2026

OCR Studio continues its live coverage from MWC Barcelona, the leading international exhibition for the mobile communications industry. Today is the second-to-last day of the event, and during our participation we have already showcased how OCR technologies help streamline customer onboarding, enhance regulatory compliance, and reduce the human factor across various industries. Below, using our AI systems we are presenting at the event as an example, we explain which businesses definitely need OCR in their workflows in 2026.

Banking and Fintech

In fintech, every extra second a customer spends during onboarding matters — if the KYC procedure is not fast and seamless for the users, they will not hesitate to go to a competitor. At the same time, the client’s personal data must remain confidential and under the company’s control, otherwise, businesses might not only lose customers’ trust but also face multimillion-dollar fines from regulators. This year, at MWC Barcelona, OCR Studio is showcasing a specialised AI toolset for privacy-first KYC that addresses these key demands. With this technology, banks and fintech companies are able to build a remote KYC that takes just a couple of seconds for customers while remaining entirely safe.

The AI toolset makes the whole KYC process frictionless for the clients — all they have to do is upload a photo or a scan of their identity documents. The system automatically extracts the required information and conducts various authenticity checks. Moreover, it operates directly on the end-user’s device and does not store or transmit document images to clouds, external servers, and crowdsourcing platforms. This means that businesses are safe from vendor-side data breaches which enhances their compliance with stringent regulatory requirements set by Spain’s Organic Law 3/2018 on the Protection of Personal Data and Guarantee of Digital Rights (LOPDGDD) and Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The toolset also includes a face comparison module that helps businesses strengthen protection against spoofing attacks where fraudsters attempt to use stolen IDs or leaked ID images. The system performs selfie-to-ID photo verification and matches the client’s live selfie with the document holder’s photo outputting a similarity score. This confirms that the customer is genuinely present and is the legitimate identity document holder.

Government and Public Services

Government and public sector workflows rely on fast and accurate document processing in high-volume and high-stakes scenarios — a clear example is border control, where the cost of failure is unprecedented. At MWC Barcelona, we are showcasing our flagship document forensics system OCR ID-verify that detects a broad range of fraud schemes. It authenticates documents using optical, infrared (IR), and ultraviolet (UV) light analysis and checks for the presence, absence, and consistency of special security elements, including luminescent fibres and other security printing techniques.

OCR ID-verify reliably detects forgeries with substituted fields and photos, masked data blocks, composited image fragments, and injected foreign elements. Furthermore, it performs cross-validation by comparing data from the VIZ, MRZ, and the NFC chip, commonly used in biometric passports and other eIDs. The information on this chip is protected by a cryptographic signature, which assures that it was released by the legitimate authority and has not been altered since production.

Travel and Hospitality

Airlines, hotels, and car rental agencies handle large volumes of customers from around the world on a daily basis. The multilingual OCR system we are presenting at MWC Barcelona is the right fit for this use case. OCR Studio’s solution supports over 4,000 document templates in 100+ languages — this allows fast bookings and check-ins regardless of the traveler’s country. Data entry automation also cuts boarding queues especially during peak times and reduces operational costs. Like other OCR Studio systems, this one runs on-device as well — helping hotels decrease their exposure to data breaches which are common in this sector.

Retail and E-commerce

In today’s competitive landscape, if customers fail to complete an online purchase instantly, they may switch to a more convenient alternative resulting in lost revenue for the business. At MWC Barcelona we are showcasing OCR BANK-scan — our cutting-edge technology for retailers and e-commerce companies that enables instant bank card scanning. This solution eliminates manual data entry and works even under challenging conditions when the customer did not find a perfect capture angle or took a low-resolution photo of a bank card.

In addition, OCR BANK-scan can be integrated directly on the company’s website without any apps or plugins for customers to install — this feature can boost conversion rates further. OCR Studio’s team achieved this through the WebAssembly technology and our own ultra-lightweight neural networks which make bank card scanning available at near-native speed. Like our other systems, this one was designed based on a privacy-first approach. Thus, no financial data is stored or transmitted to external parties.

Manufacturing and Logistics

Industrial environments require OCR to remain robust even under extreme weather conditions. The Industrial OCR technology we are presenting at the event was designed for this and is in demand among shipping ports, warehouses, and other industrial facilities all over the world. It is able to read license plates, VIN numbers, utility meters, shipping container IDs, and other machine-readable objects while remaining robust to poor lighting, dirt, and heavily obscured text.

The most important part is that Industrial OCR is available directly on smart glasses and can operate without an internet connection. Border guards and seaport employees with this technology just have to look at the number or text — recognition results will be displayed right in the lenses. This week, attendees can test our AI-powered AR glasses and ensure how accurately they run the recognition process. For the sake of a more realistic user experience, we brought a semi-truck model and the shipping container seals.

Gambling and Gaming

Gaming and betting platforms need identity verification solutions that keep fraudsters and underage players out. This becomes especially important considering the changing regulatory landscape — various countries are now requiring adult content providers to implement “highly effective” age checks. OCR Studio’s identity verification and fraud prevention solutions showcased at the event help gambling platforms confirm player age, streamline onboarding, and combat fraud. Our gaming fraud detection ensures fast, secure access to gambling experiences — preventing identity theft and boosting trust without slowing players down.

About OCR Studio

OCR Studio develops powerful and secure ID, document, and barcode scanning solutions that help businesses from every corner of the world to automate their workflows and build strong protection against fraudsters. Find out more about our cross-industrial technologies here.