Western Union has taken of 451st position in the rating Fortune 500 in 2009, having moved from 473rd line in 2008. The project of congressmen involved the construction of lines with the length of two thousand miles in 10 years. Western Union handled the government task within 112 days. The secret of Sibley was simple: he used the tactics of the "Western Union". The presence of Western Union Gold Card at the client greatly simplifies the process of further processing of money transfers of and reduces the operation time for the sending of money, as the "Gold Card" is a carrier of the personal information about the client. In 1860 the U.S. Congress arranged among the telegraph companies a competition to create a national line. The winner was Western Union. 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 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. 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. In October 2006 the company made an initial public offering of shares on the New York Stock Exchange, becoming independent from First Data company. Western Union made so that the time in all of American civil services was the same.