ofx/qfx direct download

[BenoitGrégoire]

On May 23, 2003 08:13 am, Levi Bard wrote:
> > No, gnucash does not support direct connect, yet.  It's being
> > considered, but libofx does not support it.  Even if/when gnucash
> > supports it, you would still need to get the OFX URL from your bank.
> > So, even if we DO get support, it may not help you unless we can
> > convince the financial institutions to give us a pointer to the OFX
> > server.
>
> Hmm, so how does quicken/money do a direct connect just based on account
> type, account number, password, and sometimes a "routing number"?  Do they
> maintain a database somewhere that maps account numbers to urls?  Or is
> this still an unknown?

As far as I could determine, they maintain a list of supported banks (stored 
in a text file).  When you select a bank from the list in the GUI, Quiken 
get's the bank ID from the file, contacts a central intuit server to get the 
url and necessary info ond only then contacts the banks ofx server.

To work with Quicken, banks have to to be on that list.  Since all banks want 
to be compatible with Quicken, Intuit even goes so far as to charge them to 
do it.

So much for open standards...
-- 
Benoit Grégoire
http://step.polymtl.ca/~bock/