In February 2009 the company entered into an agreement with Fexco to acquire 100% of its shares for $ 159.9 million. 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. 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. In order to increase competitiveness and market expansion of its services, Western Union launched a program of loyalty Western Union Gold Card for customers, who has repeatedly made money transfers via Western Union. Money transfer is a matter of minutes, at any distance. In 1914 Western Union engineers invented the first payment card - a prototype of the modern credit card. Western Union incomes for 2007 have made $4,9 billion US dollars, and the quantity of transactions has made 572 million. On the market was placed about 765 million of ordinary shares of the company. On the first day trading on the exchange the company's shares rose by 3.3% and the cost was $ 19.96. Number of active holders of "Golden Card" of Western Union amounted to 9.5 million people worldwide.