The telegraph became the basis of the Fedwire Funds Service, a proprietary communications system \set up by the Federal Reserve Banks to process fund transfers among the 12 Reserve Banks.
The invention of the printing press – enabling countries to literally print money – was arguably the first example of fintech. But the 1835 invention of the telegraph and the laying of the first trans-Atlantic cable in 1866, marked major leaps forward, setting the scene for the globalization of finance.
In 1918, the U.S. deployed the telegraph as the basis for the Fedwire Funds Service, a proprietary communications system set up to process fund transfers among the 12 Federal Reserve Banks that remained in use until the early 1970s.