In February 2009 the company entered into an agreement with Fexco to acquire 100% of its shares for $ 159.9 million. The presence of Western Union Gold Card at the client greatly simplifies the process of further processing of money transfers of and reduces the operation time for the sending of money, as the "Gold Card" is a carrier of the personal information about the client. 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. Leaving the idea of expansion into Europe, Western Union took up the expansion of services in the U.S. market. Payment systems are one of basic elements of infrastructure of e-commerce. The Western Union Company is a leader in global payment services The Western Union Company is a financial services and communications company based in the United States. In October 1871 the company Western Union began to provide money transfer services, drawing on its own extensive telegraph network.