In October 2006 the company made an initial public offering of shares on the New York Stock Exchange, becoming independent from First Data company. 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. To obtain the Golden card can any client of Western Union, committing money transfers on this system more than 1 time per year. Getting the card is issued at the time of making of the next transfer. In 1914 Western Union engineers invented the first payment card - a prototype of the modern credit card. Western Union incomes for 2007 have made $4,9 billion US dollars, and the quantity of transactions has made 572 million. In 1849, Selden and Sibley, the founders of the future Western Union, created the New York State Printing Telegraph Company.