direct download from broker

[Andrew Sackville-West]

On Wed, 04 Jan 2006 18:39:59 -0500
Victor Chudnovsky <vchudnov at mit.edu> wrote:

> 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."

well, its possible that you might be able to get them to reveal how to do the download as I'm willing to bet that its still in one of those formats. They just took off the pretty front end and mad the address... You might see if you can find your way to one of their IT guys and get that info? I know that doesn't really help your situation much, but it'd be fun to figure it out.

A
> 
> 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. "
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