utilization of standards

[Maciej Gawinecki]

Let me put how I understand your statement.

Using OFX standard by banks is not only the question of introducing 
external interface for bank's clients (and their application), but also 
adapting their internal solution to work in regard to OFX. Am I right ?

But Intuit with their Quicken prefers to sell solutions based on their 
own standards, like QIF or QFX, even to bank manager, to gain role of 
monopolist on this market. Is it correct understanding ?

So why the newest Quicken handle with OFX standard ?

BTW, does bank usually prefer to buy off-the-shelf products, like 
mechanism for managing accounts, rather then designing and implementing 
their own solutions ?

Regards,

Maciej

David Reiser pisze:
> 
> On 20 Aug 2007, at 8:05:06 AM, Maciej Gawinecki wrote:
> 
>> Hi,
>>
>> When I discovered your program I start wondering:
>>
>> if there is open and free standard OFX defining syntax and semantics
>>    of account statements, then why so many banks use their own approaches
>>    to form them: CSV, TXT etc ? Is it the matter of difficulty and money,
>>    while adapting an application (e.g. e-bank site) to OFX standard ?
>>
>> Please, let me know, if you have any hipothesis or experience,
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Maciej
> 
> I think it is a combination of money and inertia. While it is a 
> standard, OFX was developed by Intuit, Checkfree, and Microsoft. The 
> biggest proponent of OFX is Intuit, who sells server software and/or 
> services to financial organizations. But it seems they charge a lot, and 
> treat their commercial customers about as well as they treat individual 
> purchasers of Quicken licenses (that is, not many people like to deal 
> with Intuit).
> 
> So, if a bank already has an older system that at least works, there is 
> resistance to replacing it with a high cost alternative (Intuit/Quicken 
> with QFX, a slight variant of OFX).
> 
> My credit union flat out refused to upgrade when Quicken quit importing 
> QIF format files. They still make QIF files available, and they actively 
> discourage their customers from upgrading Quicken, since Intuit has quit 
> providing QIF import capabilities (another format that they created!).
> 
> There are a few software service companies that provide OFX capabilities 
> independent of Intuit, but their market share seems to be small in 
> comparison to Intuit. I think the server side market (conservative bank 
> managers) equates OFX with Intuit, and doesn't want to get trapped into 
> Intuit's business web when  they don't see a strong correlation between 
> one specific online bank capability and number of new customers acquired 
> or improved retention of customers.
> 
> There are quite a few banks promoting their online banking that is 
> independent of any personal computer captive/offline personal finance 
> software -- all you need is a web browser and an internet connection. 
> Even Intuit is going to offer an online version of Quicken, with no 
> client software/data storage installed on the pc.
> 
> I'd love to see OFX more widely deployed, but I blame Intuit for 
> strangling its growth.
> -- 
> David Reiser
> dbreiser at earthlink.net
> 
>