In the Western Union in the 30s of the 20th century worked 14 thousand couriers delivering telegrams. The Western Union Company - the American company, specialising on granting of services of monetary intermediary. Western Union was founded in 1851. The company is one of leaders in the market of the international remittances. In 1860 the U.S. Congress arranged among the telegraph companies a competition to create a national line. The winner was Western Union. In October 2006 the company made an initial public offering of shares on the New York Stock Exchange, becoming independent from First Data company. In 1914 Western Union engineers invented the first payment card - a prototype of the modern credit card. Sibley, the founder of Western Union, did not build a new telegraph lines, and persuaded the other players to join. American Telegraph Company, however, still had to buy it.