As a result of 2011, net income of Western Union has increased by 28% to $ 1.165 billion, the company reported. 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. Sibley, the founder of Western Union, did not build a new telegraph lines, and persuaded the other players to join. American Telegraph Company, however, still had to buy it.