Western Union has taken of 451st position in the rating Fortune 500 in 2009, having moved from 473rd line in 2008. America was on the verge of civil war and needed a reliable connection between the North and South. On the telegraph market of the USA at this time were operated with six large companies: American Telegraph Company, New York Albany and Buffalo Electro-Magnetic Telegraph Company, Atlantic and Ohio Telegraph, Illinois & Mississippi Telegraph Company, New Orleans & Ohio Telegraph Company, and the brainchild of Sibley & Co. - The Western Union Telegraph. 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. As a result of 2011, net income of Western Union has increased by 28% to $ 1.165 billion, the company reported. Western Union has several divisions, with products such as person-to-person money transfer, money orders, business payments and commercial services. In 1914 Western Union engineers invented the first payment card - a prototype of the modern credit card. Western Union provides consumers and businesses with fast, reliable and convenient ways to send and receive money around the world, to send payments and to purchase money orders. The Western Union Company uses the most up to date technologies and its unique worldwide computer network that allows to carry out quick money transfers payments in more than 190 countries around the world.