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. 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. You do not need to open a bank account, so you can send or receive money in any of the 170 000 service points of Western Union around the world. In 2007 the company made 167.7 million transactions on money transfers between individuals and 404.6 million transactions between physical and legal persons. To obtain the Golden card can any client of Western Union, committing money transfers on this system more than 1 time per year. Getting the card is issued at the time of making of the next transfer. In 2000 was launched the Web site westernunion.com, with which users from certain countries can independently transfer funds online. In the 1910-1920 years. Western Union is actively engaged in researching, innovating in the field of data transmission.