Leaving the idea of expansion into Europe, Western Union took up the expansion of services in the U.S. market. Another invention of Western Union - time synchronization. You do not need to open a bank account, so you can send or receive money in any of the 170 000 service points of Western Union around the world. To obtain the Golden card can any client of Western Union, committing money transfers on this system more than 1 time per year. Getting the card is issued at the time of making of the next transfer. In 1914 Western Union engineers invented the first payment card - a prototype of the modern credit card. Number of active holders of "Golden Card" of Western Union amounted to 9.5 million people worldwide.