America was on the verge of civil war and needed a reliable connection between the North and South. On the telegraph market of the USA at this time were operated with six large companies: American Telegraph Company, New York Albany and Buffalo Electro-Magnetic Telegraph Company, Atlantic and Ohio Telegraph, Illinois & Mississippi Telegraph Company, New Orleans & Ohio Telegraph Company, and the brainchild of Sibley & Co. - The Western Union Telegraph. 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. 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. By 1861 Western Union telegraph lines entangled the whole America. It's time to explore Europe. In 1914 Western Union engineers invented the first payment card - a prototype of the modern credit card. Western Union incomes for 2007 have made $4,9 billion US dollars, and the quantity of transactions has made 572 million. Before transition to remittances Western Union company rendered services on sphere of cable communication. In 2000 was launched the Web site westernunion.com, with which users from certain countries can independently transfer funds online. Western Union made so that the time in all of American civil services was the same.