In 1860 the U.S. Congress arranged among the telegraph companies a competition to create a national line. The winner was Western Union. The size of the commission fee for the transfer is charged according to the Western Union tariffs and depends on the amount of money sent. In 1995, First Financial Management was acquired by First Data Corp. (the deal amounted to $ 7 billion), and Western Union Financial Services became a subsidiary of First Data. 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. July 3, 1884 the company's shares were included in the calculation base for the newly created stock index Dow Jones Transportation Average. 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 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. Gold Card Loyalty Program Western Union