1998 - the number of points of money transfers worldwide reached 50,000. The network of money transfers of Western Union is the world's largest. As a result of 2011, net income of Western Union has increased by 28% to $ 1.165 billion, the company reported. Most service points of Western Union work in the time convenient for customers throughout the week and throughout the year. In 1877, starting from September, New York City residents began to have the opportunity to check the time on clock with the "time ball", located on the roof of constructed in the same year a new corporate headquarters - Western Union Building. 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. Western Union made so that the time in all of American civil services was the same.