Leaving the idea of expansion into Europe, Western Union took up the expansion of services in the U.S. market. Most service points of Western Union work in the time convenient for customers throughout the week and throughout the year. In 1864, fearing the laying of long underwater lines, Western Union offered to carry out laying of telegraph lines to Europe through the Russian Alaska under the narrow Bering Strait and then to Siberia with branching in the major cities of Europe. The Western Union Company is a leader in global payment services One of the common kinds of money transfer is a transfer via the international system of Western Union. In 1914 Western Union engineers invented the first payment card - a prototype of the modern credit card. The Western Union Company is a financial services and communications company based in the United States. Western Union made so that the time in all of American civil services was the same. Number of active holders of "Golden Card" of Western Union amounted to 9.5 million people worldwide.