Western Union
Western Union (NYSE: WU) is a financial services and communications company based in the United States. Its North American headquarters are in Englewood, Colorado, and its international marketing and commercial services headquarters are in Montvale, New Jersey. Until it discontinued the service, this company was the best known US company in the business of exchanging telegrams.
Western Union has a number of divisions, with products such as person-to-person money transfer, money orders, and commercial services. As of June 9, 2006, the company has 270,000 Western Union agent locations in over 200 countries and territories. Reported revenues top $3 billion annually.
History
Western Union was founded in Rochester, New York, in 1851 as The New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company.
After a series of acquisitions of competing companies by Hiram Sibley & Don Alonzo Watson the company changed its name to Western Union Telegraph Company in 1856 at the insistence of Ezra Cornell, one of the founders of Cornell University [1], to signify the joining of telegraph lines from coast to coast.
Western Union completed the first transcontinental telegraph line in 1861. In 1865 it formed the Russian American Telegraph in an attempt to link America to Europe, via Alaska, into Siberia, to Moscow.
It introduced the first stock ticker in 1866, and a standardized time service in 1870. The next year, 1871, the company introduced its money transfer service, based on its extensive telegraph network. In 1879, Western Union left the telephone business, having lost a patent lawsuit. As the telephone replaced the telegraph, money transfer would become its primary business.
When the Dow Jones Transportation Average stock market index for the NYSE was created in 1884, Western Union was one of the original eleven companies tracked.
In 1914 Western Union offered the first charge card for consumers; in 1923 it introduced teletypewriters to join its branches. Singing telegrams followed in 1933, intercity fax in 1935, and commercial intercity microwave communications in 1943. In 1958 it began offering Telex to customers. In 1964, Western Union initiated a transcontinental microwave beam to replace land lines.
Western Union became the first American telecommunications corporation to maintain its own fleet of geosynchronous communication satellites, starting in 1974. The fleet of satellites, called Westar, carried communications within the Western Union company for telegram and mailgram message data to Western Union bureaus nationwide. It also handled traffic for its Telex and TWX (Telex II) services. The Westar satellites' transponders were also leased by other companies for relaying video, voice, data, and facsimile(fax) transmissions.
Due to declining profits and mounting debts, Western Union slowly began to divest itself of telecommunications-based assets starting in the early 1980s. Due to deregulation at the time, Western Union began sending money outside the country, re-inventing itself as "The fastest way to send money worldwideSM" and expanding its agent locations internationally.
In 1986, Western Union and GTE became owners of Airfone.
Western Union was bought by First Financial Management Corporation in 1994, which a year later merged with First Data Corporation. On January 26, 2006, First Data Corporation announced plans to spin Western Union off as an independent, publicly traded company. Western Union's focus will remain money transfers. The next day, Western Union announced that it would cease offering telegram transmission and delivery[2], the product most associated with the company throughout its history. This was, however, not the original Western Union telegram service, but a new service of First Data under the Western Union banner; the original telegram service was discontinued after Western Union Corp.'s bankruptcy.
The spinoff was completed in December and Western Union is now an independent, publicly traded company.
Western Union is also the name of a ship that worked for the same company laying telegraph cable in the Caribbean and South America. She is currently working in Key West, Florida, where she was built and launched. The Western Union is 130 feet long and weighs 91.91 tons and is currently configured as a passenger vessel.
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Western Union
Western Union (NYSE: WU) is a financial services and communications company based in the United States. Its North American headquarters are in Englewood, Colorado, and its international marketing and commercial services headquarters are in Montvale, New Jersey. Until it discontinued the service, this company was the best known US company in the business of exchanging telegrams.
Western Union has a number of divisions, with products such as person-to-person money transfer, money orders, and commercial services. As of June 9, 2006, the company has 270,000 Western Union agent locations in over 200 countries and territories. Reported revenues top $3 billion annually.
Western Union- transfer funds online to anyone almost anywhere in the world.
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Western Union scraps telegram service
STOP: After 155 years in the telegraph business, Western Union has cabled its final dispatch.
The service that in the mid-1800s displaced pony-borne messengers has itself been supplanted over the last half-century by cheap long- distance telephone service, faxes and e-mail. In a final bit of irony, Western Union informed customers last week in a message on its Web site.
"Effective January 27, 2006, Western Union will discontinue all Telegram and Commercial Messaging services," said the notice. "We regret any inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you for your loyal patronage."
The terse notice, confirmed Wednesday by Victor Chayet, a spokesman for the Greenwood Village, Colo., unit of First Data Corp., was in keeping with t ...
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Send Western Union Money Worldwide - Anytime!
For those who are really bankrupt and in urgent need of some emergency funds, getting funds through Western Union is one of the best things that one can do today. A quick way to get cash especially for times when you are most in need, a western union money transfer can really be a lifesaver in a number of cases. This is a fact, as I had to use it before. The first time that I got a Western Union money wire was several years ago. Six years ago to be precise. I was far-off, on vacation in England. I was staying there for 2 months and backpacking across the country.
Online Money Transfer has made banking all the more easier.
Modern Day Banking has become extremely hectic with loads of transactions occurring at the same time across the globe. With financial regulations stepping up, there are businesses that require banking 24/7. With technology evolving on a regular basis, new concepts of banking are being introduced now and then. With the birth of the internet, all major transactions have become faster and secured. Ditto for mobile banking, banking has been at its convenient best. Gone are the days when you had to wait till the teller counted your number and you silently followed his instructions either to deposit an amount to or have a cheque encashed.