The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Denver, Colorado.
Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York,[3] the company changed its name to the Western Union Telegraph Company in 1856 after merging with several other telegraph companies.[4] It dominated the American telegraphy industry from the 1860s to the 1980s, pioneering technology such as telex and developing a range of telegraph-related services, including wire money transfer, in addition to its core business of transmitting and delivering telegram messages.
After experiencing financial difficulties, it began to move its business away from communications in the 1980s and increasingly focused on its money-transfer services. It ceased its communications operations completely in 2006,[5][6] at which time The New York Times described it as "the world's largest money-transfer business" and added that the company would remain as such due to the large number of immigrants wiring money home.[7]
From the perspective of the history of technology, Western Union notably completed the first transcontinental telegraph in 1861, being a part of U.S. industry's investments into developing American communications between the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. The first messages went to then President of the U.S. Abraham Lincoln.
History
Founding and expansion (1851–1866)
The New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company was founded in Rochester, New York, by Samuel L. Selden, Hiram Sibley, and others in 1851.[8] In 1856 the company merged with its competitor the Erie and Michigan Telegraph Company, controlled by John James Speed, Francis Ormand Jonathan Smith and Ezra Cornell[9] and, at Cornell's insistence, changed its name to Western Union Telegraph Company.[10]
In 1857, Western Union participated in the 'Treaty of Six Nations', an attempt by six of the largest telegraph firms to create a system of regional telegraphy monopolies with a shared network of main lines.[11] After the creation of the 'Six Nations' system, Western Union continued to acquire both larger and smaller telegraph companies and by 1864 had transformed from a regional monopoly into a national oligopolist with its only serious competitors being the American Telegraph Company and the United States Telegraph Company.
Current services
Wire transfer
Money can be sent online or in-person at Western Union agent locations. Cash can be collected in person at any other Western Union agent location worldwide by providing the 10-digit MTCN (Money Transfer Control Number) and identification. In some cases, a secret question and answer can be used instead of identification.
Western Union Mobile
In October 2007, Western Union announced plans to introduce a mobile money-transfer service in collaboration with the GSM Association, a global trade association representing more than 700 mobile operators across 218 countries and covering 2.5 billion mobile subscribers.
The proliferation of mobile phones in both developed and developing economies provides a widely accessible consumer device capable of delivering mobile financial services. These services range from text notifications related to Western Union cash delivery to phone-based remittance options. Western Union's mobile money transfer service will connect its core money-transfer platform to m-bank or m-wallet platforms offered by mobile operators and/or locally regulated financial institutions.
Western Union Connect
The company launched the Western Union Connect service in October 2015, following partnership agreements with major instant messaging apps
Past services
Communications
Along with satellite telecommunications, Western Union was also active in other forms of telecommunication services:
Most of these services were discontinued by Western Union in the late 1980s due to a lack of profitability, with the company's divisions providing said services being divested and sold to other companies, such as the 1988 sale of WU's satellite fleet and services to Hughes Space and Communications, and the sale of WU's Airfone service to GTE in 1986.
- Common carrier terrestrial microwave networks
- Business communications networks such as Telex and TWX, which was acquired from AT&T Corporation and renamed Telex II by Western Union
- Landline-based leased voice and data communication circuits
- Long-distance telephone service
- Airfone air-ground radiotelephone service from 1981 to 1986
Sponsorship
Western Union was a major shirt-sponsor of the Sydney Roosters NRL team from 2002 to 2003. The company still sponsors the team, but not as a shirt-sponsor. Globally Western Union sponsors numerous community events that help support the diaspora communities that use the global Money Transfer service. They also sponsored numerous WWE and WCW pay-per-view events such as No Way Out 1998 and Slamboree 2000. They sponsored UEFA Europa League from 2012 until 2015.[60][61]
During the 2003–04 season, Western Union served as the title sponsor for the Premier Division Football League in Dhaka, Bangladesh.[62]
The First Data Western Union Foundation donates money to charitable causes globally. After the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the Foundation donated US$1,000,000 to the relief effort.
Involvement in early computer networking
Western Union telegrams were transmitted through a store and forward message switching system.[67] Early versions were manual telegraph systems. Later systems using teleprinters were semi-automatic, using punched paper tape to receive, store, and retransmit messages. Plan 55-A, Western Union's last paper tape based switching system (1948–1976), was fully automatic, with automatic routing.[68][69]
Western Union was a prime contractor in the Automatic Digital Network (AUTODIN) program. AUTODIN, a military application for communication, was first developed in the 1960s, but was dismantled in favor of the ARPANET, the precursor to the modern Internet in the 1990s. The Defense Message System (DMS) replaced AUTODIN in 2000.[70]
AUTODIN, originally named "ComLogNet", was a reliable service that operated at 99.99% availability, using mechanical
Controversies
Scam industry and money laundering
Western Union advises its customers not to send money to someone that they have never met in person. Despite its efforts in increasing customers' awareness of the issue,[79] Western Union is used extensively for internet fraud by scammers.[80]
Western Union has been required to maintain records of payout locations of the individuals who may be laundering the money, though this information may be obtained only through the use of a subpoena. Hence advance-fee fraud and romance scammers continue to receive funds via Western Union confident in the knowledge that money lost to overseas scammers is almost always unrecoverable.[81] For this reason, it is banned as a medium of payment through eBay,[82]
See also
- 60 Hudson Street – Former headquarters
- 92 Code
- Communications in the United States
- Pangram – Used by WU to test teleprinters.
- Pennsylvania v. New York — Question before the U.S. Supreme Court: when Western Union Money orders are supposed to escheat to the state if not fully redeemed, what state is to get the money?
- Telegram messenger
- Telegraph in United States history
- Western Union, 1939 schooner chartered by Western Union Telegraph Company, used in the film Amistad as a portrayal of the slave ship La Amistad
- Western Union splice
- Western Union Telegraph Building – Former headquarters
External links
- Guide to the Western Union Telegraph Company Records | National Museum of American History
- Telegram for America, an industrial film showing Western Union telegram handling (1956)
- Western Union Telegram Collection at the University of Mississippi Libraries
References
- Our Vision | Western Union corporate.westernunion.com, retrieved August 24, 2020^
- 2018 Western Union revenues decline but transactions rise in FY 2023 February 7, 2024^
- Western Union Corporation | American company