As a result of 2011, net income of Western Union has increased by 28% to $ 1.165 billion, the company reported. July 3, 1884 the company's shares were included in the calculation base for the newly created stock index Dow Jones Transportation Average. In October 2006 the company made an initial public offering of shares on the New York Stock Exchange, becoming independent from First Data company. In 1864, fearing the laying of long underwater lines, Western Union offered to carry out laying of telegraph lines to Europe through the Russian Alaska under the narrow Bering Strait and then to Siberia with branching in the major cities of Europe. 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. Western Union made so that the time in all of American civil services was the same. All you need for sending money via Western Union is to go to the nearest branch of Western Union, fill out the transfer printed form, show your passport and then send money. 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.