In 1860 the U.S. Congress arranged among the telegraph companies a competition to create a national line. The winner was Western Union. Separation of the companies had two objectives: first, to give Western Union the opportunity to develop more intensively, and secondly, to help First Data to return to its original activity (in 1992 the company separated from the payment system of American Express as an independent financial services company). In October 2006 the company made an initial public offering of shares on the New York Stock Exchange, becoming independent from First Data company. Payment systems are one of basic elements of infrastructure of e-commerce. Western Union incomes for 2007 have made $4,9 billion US dollars, and the quantity of transactions has made 572 million. 1970 - a new service called Western Union for more than 130 years provides money transfer services to its customers.