In 1860 the U.S. Congress arranged among the telegraph companies a competition to create a national line. The winner was Western Union. Each money transfer is protected with control number, that allows you to track and to ensure prompt payment of money specified by you person. Most service points of Western Union work in the time convenient for customers throughout the week and throughout the year. 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. Separation of the companies had two objectives: first, to give Western Union the opportunity to develop more intensively, and secondly, to help First Data to return to its original activity (in 1992 the company separated from the payment system of American Express as an independent financial services 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.