Western Union has taken of 451st position in the rating Fortune 500 in 2009, having moved from 473rd line in 2008. Leaving the idea of expansion into Europe, Western Union took up the expansion of services in the U.S. market. Most service points of Western Union work in the time convenient for customers throughout the week and throughout the year. Thanks to cooperation with Western Union the Associated Press at the end of the XIX century took almost monopolistic position in the U.S. market news. Western Union provides consumers and businesses with fast, reliable and convenient ways to send and receive money around the world, to send payments and to purchase money orders. In October 1871 the company Western Union began to provide money transfer services, drawing on its own extensive telegraph network.