Finally spring came. A season that promises great deals and business activity. It seems that the spring Sun gives strength not only to the nature but to people and business as well. And very soon we will witness a rapid growth of business activity both online and offline. Actually we can say that March is the first business month, therefore we can congratulate you with the beginning of a new business year. However we cannot start the new year without finishing the previous one.

The government whacked the compensation of top executives at General Motors Co., Chrysler LLC and their financial arms Thursday. Kenneth Feinberg, an independent official named to make sure taxpayer money isn't feathering the nests of company bigwigs, also ordered deep cuts for insurance giant AIG and financial houses Bank of America and Citigroup. In metro Detroit, the order was a sobering reminder of Washington's involvement in the car business.

The Obama administration plans to order companies that have received exceptionally large amounts of bailout money from the government to slash compensation for their highest-paid executives by about half on average, according to people familiar with the long-awaited decision.

Only 12 percent of U.S. homeowners eligible for loan modifications under the Obama administration's housing rescue plan have had their mortgages reworked, and millions more foreclosures are coming, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.A Treasury report showed 360,165 people had their monthly payments reduced through August, up from 235,247 through July, but a senior Treasury official conceded much more must be done to soften the impact of a severe and prolonged housing crisis.

According to the RealtyTrac data, including more than 90% of US households, 336,173 filings nationally was counted, ranging from default notices to bank repossessions. These figures reflect 4.57% growth, against the previous month and up 33% increase, compared to the same period last year. For the second quarter, filings were up 20% from the comparable period last year.

Gold was observed to held steady on Friday near a two-month high, due to the US dollar remaining weak and US data on jobless claims and business conditions denying hopes for a quick return to growth.Gold has already risen about 2.6 per cent this week, and is expected to rise further, as current prices prompt some to take profit while others halt investment in gold-backed exchange-traded funds. Gold reached as high as $US955.95 on Thursday, its highest since March 23 of $US966. 

The UK's Department of Transport decided to conduct an experiment through a free game as a part of its THINK! campaign. The institution took into consideration the fact that 30 per cent of young drivers admit sending text messages from behind the wheel, while the rate makes 12 percent when talked about all UK drivers who admit composing T9 missives when driving. 

Today, when the whole world is suffering consequences of the global crisis , when most of the countries are in the deepest recession, when even the largest corporations have to reduce their business significantly, when a lot of companies have to stop their activity, when people increasingly lose their jobs or have their salaries cut off at best, one important question is arising: whether the global

MoneyGram International, Inc. announced its fourth quarter of 2008 results. The outcomes show that the Company has expanded its global agent network by 23 percent comparing to the same period of the last year. Its money transfer transaction volume reached $391.0 million of unrestricted assets (increase of 8 percent from $368.6 million last year). The full money transfer revenue for the year made $1.0 billion (raise of 18 percent). 

"Can't Buy Me Love" international survey annually held by PayPal payment system and conducted by Ipsos in Australia, Canada, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States has shown that the relationship of many U.S. couples is being affected by worldwide financial crisis.   

[img_assist|nid=10827|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=100|height=67]IBM today released new survey results which reveal that over 50 percent of consumers would substitute their Internet usage on a PC for a mobile device. Expanding on the May 2008 "Go Mobile, Grow" study produced by IBM's Institute for Business Value, the survey identifies new findings that validate previous conclusions on how consumers will be open to full adoption of the mobile device as the hub for Internet activity. 

Annual commercial spending in Asia Pacific grew to an estimated US$18.9 trillion in 2007, an increase of 13 percent from $16.8 trillion in 2006, according to data from the Commercial Consumption Expenditure (CCE) index released today by Visa. Global annual commercial spending grew to an estimated $77.3 trillion in 2007, representing an increase of 12.2 percent from $68.9 trillion in 2006.

[img_assist|nid=8533|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=100|height=66] Visa commissioned a study to figure out e-commerce popularity in the countries of the Latin America. As per the data gained in the course of the study held by the way by the AmericaEconomia Intelligence research over the last two years e-commerce increased 121 percent with $10.9 billion spent online by the consumers in 2007.

[img_assist|nid=8430|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=100|height=51] Ten million Americans already are mobile bankers. But that represents just 6 percent of all U.S. cell phone users. Clearly, there is a vast untapped market of potential mobile bankers. Javelin Strategy & Research, however, contends that banks are missing out on a huge opportunity by targeting m-banking services only at online banking users.

[img_assist|nid=8025|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=100|height=100]All the recent surveys and reports show the stable economic downturn. A well-known research group eMarketer also have provided its own reserach and have revealed the statistics showing the present tendencies. According to eMarteter the downturn is beginning to be felt in continental Europe, but much less so than in the US and UK.