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. 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. 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. In October 1871 the company Western Union began to provide money transfer services, drawing on its own extensive telegraph network. Western Union made so that the time in all of American civil services was the same. In 1884 Western Union has become a joint-stock company and was brought to the stock exchange. The company has entered in the first American stock index Dow Jones.