The presence of Western Union Gold Card at the client greatly simplifies the process of further processing of money transfers of and reduces the operation time for the sending of money, as the "Gold Card" is a carrier of the personal information about the client. 1998 - the number of points of money transfers worldwide reached 50,000. The network of money transfers of Western Union is the world's largest. In 1860 the U.S. Congress arranged among the telegraph companies a competition to create a national line. The winner was Western Union. Another invention of Western Union - time synchronization. In 1866, Sibley ordered the engineers to develop a Western Union telegraph system of stock quotes in real time. In 1879 Western Union left the telephone business after losing a lawsuit against Alexander Graham Bell - the patent holder on the phone. Western Union made so that the time in all of American civil services was the same.