In 1860 the U.S. Congress arranged among the telegraph companies a competition to create a national line. The winner was Western Union. Leaving the idea of expansion into Europe, Western Union took up the expansion of services in the U.S. market. The size of the commission fee for the transfer is charged according to the Western Union tariffs and depends on the amount of money sent. In 1914 Western Union engineers invented the first payment card - a prototype of the modern credit card. In the 1910-1920 years. Western Union is actively engaged in researching, innovating in the field of data transmission.