ofx direct connect

David Reiser dbreiser at earthlink.net
Fri Oct 27 21:16:40 EDT 2006


On Oct 27, 2006, at 5:37 PM, Jacob Church wrote:

> Does anyone use direct connect for washington mutual, bank of  
> america, or
> hsbc? If so, where did you get the information to connect to their  
> servers?
>
> Also, I was wondering if anyone could recommend banks in the US  
> that share
> this information and/or let you connect for free.
>
None of the banks shares this information with customers. You can dig  
it out of some of the places mentioned in
http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/ 
FAQ#Q:_My_bank_offers_OFX_Direct_Connect.__How_do_I_use_that.3F
but banks just plain aren't prepared to support anything but Quicken  
and MSMoney.

At least some banks don't forbid using something else. I _just_  
opened an account at TD Banknorth. Their online agreement  
specifically states that I am allowed to access my data with personal  
financial management (prm) software. The only fully supported  pfms  
are Quicken and Money. TD Banknorth does have a server that's  
reachable directly from the data discussed on Jongsma's page. And I'm  
not forbidden from using GnuCash, so I will. I'm excited enough about  
this that I just might learn C++ to add to libofx for handling  
payments. The other good thing about TDB is that ATM access is free  
anywhere in the world (via a rebate at the end of the month).

To the question at hand: Bank of America California, Bank of America  
Washington, and WaMu are all behind a Yodlee branding server, so you  
need a copy of Quicken or Money to connect once so you can read the  
ofx.log to find out what the data server's address is. I got my copy  
of Quicken Basic free last January for buying Turbo Tax.

If you are outside CA or WA, BofA's data is:

     <ProviderURL>https://ofx.bankofamerica.com/cgi-forte/fortecgi? 
servicename=ofx_2-3&amp;pagename=ofx</ProviderURL>
     <Org>HAN</Org>
     <FID>6812</FID>

and hsbc's is:

     <ProviderURL>https://pfm.ebank.us.hsbc.com/prod.ofx</ProviderURL>
     <Org>ISC</Org>
     <FID>9901</FID>

Where the BofA url says '&amp;' I'm pretty sure you have to replace  
it with just '&' (no quotes)

I'm pretty sure Wachovia has their own servers (not Yodlee/ 
CheckFree), so they might be a candidate for you.

It seems to me that a majority of the banks these days are offering  
free online banking. Chase and Citi do charge for access to checking  
accounts (paying bills), but they let you in free for downloading  
credit card data (different servers, obviously...)

Many of the banks that do allow free access do require that you  
register ahead of time. If you get a bank that tells you that you  
will have to change your password the first time you log in, then  
you'll need Quicken or Money for that, too. After the password has  
been changed, you'll be able to use GnuCash.

If you want to find out if a bank is paying Intuit (or whomever) the  
necessary fees for a direct connect server instead of just web  
connect, check out:

http://web.intuit.com/fisearchbasic

Dave
--
David Reiser
dbreiser at earthlink.net



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