America was on the verge of civil war and needed a reliable connection between the North and South. On the telegraph market of the USA at this time were operated with six large companies: American Telegraph Company, New York Albany and Buffalo Electro-Magnetic Telegraph Company, Atlantic and Ohio Telegraph, Illinois & Mississippi Telegraph Company, New Orleans & Ohio Telegraph Company, and the brainchild of Sibley & Co. - The Western Union Telegraph. In 1860 the U.S. Congress arranged among the telegraph companies a competition to create a national line. The winner was Western Union. In the 80's of Nineteenth century, Western Union was repeatedly tried capture by the railroad tycoon Jay Gould. He worked with Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the first phone. One of the common kinds of money transfer is a transfer via the international system of Western Union. 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.