Banking Recommendations

[David Reiser]

On Aug 5, 2006, at 5:59 PM, Chris Spencer wrote:

> Chris S wrote:
>> I'd like to use Gnucash to directly access by bank account. I'm
>> currently with PNC and since it looks like they'll never provide such
>> a service, I'm looking to switch banks. Can anyone recommend a decent
>> bank that's Gnucash-friendly?
>
> Sorry, I didn't realize Gnucash couldn't connect directly to bank
> accounts. My mistake.

Saying that GnuCash can't connect directly to bank accounts is not  
entirely correct. It probably is true that if you ask any bank in the  
U.S. if their online banking feature is compatible with GnuCash, they  
will say "no".

Most banks in the U.S. that offer online banking use OFX (or it's  
virtually identical Intuit/Quicken variant, QFX) or another close  
cousin OFC for their transaction data interchange. GnuCash 2.0 will  
connect to OFX/QFX servers via Aqbanking. That said, there are still  
some impediments: libofx (the utility Aqbanking uses to handle  
OFXDirectConnect sessions) does not handle any outgoing transactions  
-- you can't initiate a payment from GnuCash that can be transmitted  
to the bank. Only transaction downloads are possible. I blame this on  
the extreme scarcity of OFX test servers. Screwing up a transaction  
download is easily fixable, fixing a screwed up payment authorization  
causes significantly more heartburn. Most banks have no interest in  
making their QFX servers available to outside developers, and no open  
source developer is likely to be willing to pay Intuit's fees for  
accessing a test server (if Intuit even has a fee schedule for such  
access).

Then there's the issue of server irregularities. PNC uses a third  
party, Yodlee, to handle their Quicken connections with customers. If  
I'm reading my error messages correctly, Yodlee uses a non-standard  
SSL Certificate exchange sequence that causes Aqbanking to fail to  
connect.

My credit union (or really, their third party data handler) has been  
unwilling to pay the Quicken extortion for a recent QFX server. I  
haven't yet been willing to get a third financial institution for   
checking accounts.

I suppose it is possible that connecting to checking/savings is  
inherently different from connecting to credit card and investment  
operations, but I doubt it. I have successfully connected directly  
from GnuCash to several national credit card providers and two  
investment brokers. (The investment transaction handling needs some  
improvement -- importing from an ofx file works better -- but those  
improvements probably aren't far off.)

If Wachovia's terms aren't too objectionable to you, you might find  
you can connect via GnuCash to their servers. They, at least, seem to  
be running their own OFX/QFX server. I personally won't use Wachovia  
until they have a plan that doesn't charge me for using someone  
else's ATM (in addition to the usual charge by the foreign bank  
themselves...).

Whatever route you take, you can be sure that the bank will deny they  
support anything other than Quicken/MSMoney, but if you are willing  
to experiment a bit, you might at least get transaction downloads to  
work inside GnuCash.

>
> Chris

Dave
--
David Reiser
dbreiser at earthlink.net