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". Another invention of Western Union - time synchronization. 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. In 1914 Western Union engineers invented the first payment card - a prototype of the modern credit card. 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.