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. In 1864, fearing the laying of long underwater lines, Western Union offered to carry out laying of telegraph lines to Europe through the Russian Alaska under the narrow Bering Strait and then to Siberia with branching in the major cities of Europe. In 1879 Western Union left the telephone business after losing a lawsuit against Alexander Graham Bell - the patent holder on the phone. The Western Union Company is a financial services and communications company based in the United States. In the summer of 1990 top managers of the Western Union Company spent day and night in the main office in Englewood (Colorado, USA). They needed to meet the challenge: to save the Western Union from bankruptcy, paying off the debts of the company millions of dollars. In 1884 Western Union has become a joint-stock company and was brought to the stock exchange. The company has entered in the first American stock index Dow Jones. Western Union made so that the time in all of American civil services was the same.