Western Union has taken of 451st position in the rating Fortune 500 in 2009, having moved from 473rd line in 2008. In the Western Union in the 30s of the 20th century worked 14 thousand couriers delivering telegrams. In the early forties of the 20th century, Western Union has used the first time a commercial intercity microwave transmission system. 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. The size of the commission fee for the transfer is charged according to the Western Union tariffs and depends on the amount of money sent. 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. Payment systems are one of basic elements of infrastructure of e-commerce. In 2000 was launched the Web site westernunion.com, with which users from certain countries can independently transfer funds online. Western Union made so that the time in all of American civil services was the same.