In 1860 the U.S. Congress arranged among the telegraph companies a competition to create a national line. The winner was Western Union. 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). Money transfer is a matter of minutes, at any distance. One of the common kinds of money transfer is a transfer via the international system of Western Union. In 2007 the company made 167.7 million transactions on money transfers between individuals and 404.6 million transactions between physical and legal persons.