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&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 '&' 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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