As caseworkers shifted from processing checks to offering services, they made a discovery: their clients were even more troubled than they knew.

Callers to the Cincinnati headquarters heard a tape recording that said, "The company's only comment is that it is processing checks in the normal course of business."

But Mr. Manchin said today he would process checks as usual.

The museum will process checks drawn on United States banks.

For example, some merchants now process personal checks electronically almost like a debit card.

He had previously lost out on two apartments, and had become homeless, when the agency had taken too long to process rental checks.

Okay, but those processing fees in no way cost 2 dollars and it's got to be cheaper than paying more employees to process checks.

For a financial-services company like Chase, that can mean transferring employees who process checks, route documents, and type data into computers.

Even the payments system - the vital, workaday capacity of banks to process checks and to store working capital - was critically wounded.

In a lawsuit filed last year, the United States attorney in Philadelphia said Wachovia received thousands of warnings that it was processing fraudulent checks, but ignored them.