Amid harsh criticism, the center-right coalition government has withdrawn its plan to confine sickness benefit payments.

New governmental regulations introduced in the USA stipulate smaller payments to foreign farm workers who come to the United States. The government made the decision in an attempt to make US-based companies stop hiring illegal immigrants.

VeriFone partners with Opera to bring multi-media capable browser technology to secure retail payments

Firethorn Holdings, LLC, mobile banking and payments enabler, CheckFree Corporation leading provider of financial electronic commerce services and products, announced today that Bentonville, Ark.-based Arvest Bank Group, $9.3 billion-asset community banking leader throughout Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas, will offer Firethorn mobile banking and payments solution beginning first quarter 2008 to its 164,000 active online banking customers and over 24,000 monthly online bill-pay users.

SmartStream Technologies, the Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced that Bank of Scotland (Ireland) has expanded its use of TLM(R) to automate payments for its home loans and mortgages divisions.