Western Union has taken of 451st position in the rating Fortune 500 in 2009, having moved from 473rd line in 2008. 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 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 1879 Western Union left the telephone business after losing a lawsuit against Alexander Graham Bell - the patent holder on the phone.