In February 2009 the company entered into an agreement with Fexco to acquire 100% of its shares for $ 159.9 million. In the Western Union in the 30s of the 20th century worked 14 thousand couriers delivering telegrams. In 1860 the U.S. Congress arranged among the telegraph companies a competition to create a national line. The winner was Western Union. In April 1851 companions registered in Albany New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company (NYMVPTC), which included founded two years before New York State Printing Telegraph Company. 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. In 1914 Western Union engineers invented the first payment card - a prototype of the modern credit card. Thanks to cooperation with Western Union the Associated Press at the end of the XIX century took almost monopolistic position in the U.S. market news. 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. Gold Card Loyalty Program Western Union