The Western Union Company - the American company, specialising on granting of services of monetary intermediary. Western Union was founded in 1851. The company is one of leaders in the market of the international remittances. In 1860 the U.S. Congress arranged among the telegraph companies a competition to create a national line. The winner was Western Union. Western Union has several divisions, with products such as person-to-person money transfer, money orders, business payments and commercial services. In 1877, starting from September, New York City residents began to have the opportunity to check the time on clock with the "time ball", located on the roof of constructed in the same year a new corporate headquarters - Western Union Building. July 3, 1884 the company's shares were included in the calculation base for the newly created stock index Dow Jones Transportation Average. One of the common kinds of money transfer is a transfer via the international system of Western Union. In 1933, by the Western Union Company were invented "singing telegrams". In 1914 Western Union engineers invented the first payment card - a prototype of the modern credit card.