In February 2009 the company entered into an agreement with Fexco to acquire 100% of its shares for $ 159.9 million. 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. In 1866, Sibley ordered the engineers to develop a Western Union telegraph system of stock quotes in real time. July 3, 1884 the company's shares were included in the calculation base for the newly created stock index Dow Jones Transportation Average. Payment systems are one of basic elements of infrastructure of e-commerce. In 2007 the company made 167.7 million transactions on money transfers between individuals and 404.6 million transactions between physical and legal persons. In 1914 Western Union engineers invented the first payment card - a prototype of the modern credit card. Transaction with Fexco has allowed Western Union to control directly more than 10 thousand points of service, which belonged to Fexco in 7 European countries (Spain, UK, Sweden, Ireland, Denmark, Norway and Finland).