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). Money transfer is a matter of minutes, at any distance. Western Union incomes for 2007 have made $4,9 billion US dollars, and the quantity of transactions has made 572 million. Before transition to remittances Western Union company rendered services on sphere of cable communication. 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 October 1871 the company Western Union began to provide money transfer services, drawing on its own extensive telegraph network.