Patent ID: 8600145

Claim:
A method of banknote processing wherein a banknote is scanned to obtain its two-dimensional digital image; a banknote preliminary classification is made to reveal possible classes this banknote may belong to, a sequential checking of a banknote membership in the possible classes is made by a sequential checking of the banknote correspondence to each at least of two membership criteria; if the banknote does not match at least one criterion, a decision is taken to exclude this class from further consideration; a final result is assigned to a first detected class to which the banknote corresponds with all envisaged criteria of checking its membership in the given class; if there is not found any class to which the banknote corresponds according to all checked membership criteria, a decision is taken that the banknote does not belong to any of the possible classes that have been considered; wherein when the class membership is checked or confirmed, the areas in the obtained banknote image are allotted according to a scheme specified for this class; to check at least one criterion of the class membership, for a definite pair of areas, permissibility of an interrelation characteristic for this pair of areas is checked, and in this case, the interrelation characteristic of the areas is calculated as a function specified for the given pair and depending on the values of pixels in the areas constituting the pair; the interrelation characteristic is considered permissible only when a value of the indicated function falls within a specified range.