In February 2009 the company entered into an agreement with Fexco to acquire 100% of its shares for $ 159.9 million. Leaving the idea of expansion into Europe, Western Union took up the expansion of services in the U.S. market. In 1995, First Financial Management was acquired by First Data Corp. (the deal amounted to $ 7 billion), and Western Union Financial Services became a subsidiary of First Data. You do not need to open a bank account, so you can send or receive money in any of the 170 000 service points of Western Union around the world. In 1914 Western Union engineers invented the first payment card - a prototype of the modern credit card. 1970 - a new service called Western Union provides consumers and businesses with fast, reliable and convenient ways to send and receive money around the world, to send payments and to purchase money orders.