direct download from broker

[Victor Chudnovsky]

Hi there,

I asked the technical support people at Charles Schwab, my broker,
whence to download an OFX-, QFX-, or QIF-formatted file with my
transactions. It turns out that they do not make this service available
on the web because they have a feature that allows Microsoft Money to
connect directly to their system to download the transactions without
going through a web browser.

Can/could GnuCash connect to financial institutions using this protocol?
Does anyone have ideas for any workarounds other than using a Windows
box to get the transactions from Schwab, save them to a file, and then
read the file into GnuCash?

FWIW, I suggested to the people at Schwab that they make downloading the
file from the website an option "because not everyone uses Windows."

Thanks,

Victor


P.S. A quick web search turns up the following references to this
feature.

A commercial Windows program:
http://www.beiley.com/fundman/tintrtv.html

Intuit:
http://web.intuit.com/about_intuit/press_releases/1998/09-08.html

"One Step Update drastically reduces the time to download customer
checking, credit card and investment data into Quicken. It eliminates
data entry so customers can enjoy more free time. Now users can download
data from multiple financial institutions with just one password and one
connection. Users can currently download investment information from 12
of the top brokerage and mutual fund companies, such as Charles Schwab,
DLJdirect, E*TRADE Securities, Fidelity Investments, and Salomon Smith
Barney; credit card information from more than 25 financial
institutions; and bank account information from more than 50 of the
largest banks."


MSN appears to offer this service online (but I'm not seeing [Charles]
Schwab listed when I try to use the service at
https://moneycentral.msn.com/ --- and I'd rather not go through MSN
anyway):

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/msn/factsheet/moneycentral.mspx

"Customers with accounts at any of seven leading brokerages - Charles
Schwab, E*Trade, Fidelity Investments, HARRISdirect, TD Waterhouse
Investor Services, UBS and Wall Street Access - can download account
statements and transactions directly into the Portfolio Manager,
eliminating the need to manually enter data. "