Western Union has taken of 451st position in the rating Fortune 500 in 2009, having moved from 473rd line in 2008. America was on the verge of civil war and needed a reliable connection between the North and South. On the telegraph market of the USA at this time were operated with six large companies: American Telegraph Company, New York Albany and Buffalo Electro-Magnetic Telegraph Company, Atlantic and Ohio Telegraph, Illinois & Mississippi Telegraph Company, New Orleans & Ohio Telegraph Company, and the brainchild of Sibley & Co. - The Western Union Telegraph. Western Union has several divisions, with products such as person-to-person money transfer, money orders, business payments and commercial services. Most service points of Western Union work in the time convenient for customers throughout the week and throughout the year. Payment systems are one of basic elements of infrastructure of e-commerce. In 1914 Western Union engineers invented the first payment card - a prototype of the modern credit card. In October 1871 the company Western Union began to provide money transfer services, drawing on its own extensive telegraph network. Western Union for more than 130 years provides money transfer services to its customers.