In 1860 the U.S. Congress arranged among the telegraph companies a competition to create a national line. The winner was Western Union. Another invention of Western Union - time synchronization. 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. Payment systems are one of basic elements of infrastructure of e-commerce. Western Union incomes for 2007 have made $4,9 billion US dollars, and the quantity of transactions has made 572 million. Western Union made so that the time in all of American civil services was the same. Number of active holders of "Golden Card" of Western Union amounted to 9.5 million people worldwide.