In 1935, Western Union has put into operation first intercity fax communication. Leaving the idea of expansion into Europe, Western Union took up the expansion of services in the U.S. market. The Western Union Company is a leader in global payment services In 1914 Western Union engineers invented the first payment card - a prototype of the modern credit card. Number of active holders of "Golden Card" of Western Union amounted to 9.5 million people worldwide.