[GNC] OFX connections

[John Ralls]

Tom,

The security implications of enabling the webkit instance in GnuCash to connect to the network are dire, especially on Microsoft Windows where WebKit is stuck on a 10 year old release with hundreds of CVEs. I suppose someone might write a browser plugin to initiate the CSV downloads from bank websites once the user has authenticated but I suspect it would be difficult and wouldn't contribute much. It's generally only a couple of clicks on any particular website.

GnuCash already has a CSV import facility: Use File>Import>Import Transactions from CSV. There you can associate columns in the CSV with GnuCash fields and adjust CSV parameters. Once you have it set up you can save the configuration for reuse. The configs are saved in the book state file and aren't amenable to sharing.

Regards,
John Ralls




> On Feb 19, 2021, at 8:36 AM, Tom Browder <tom.browder at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Feb 18, 2021 at 23:27 John Ralls <jralls at ceridwen.us> wrote:
> I'm pretty sure David was being facetious. There's approximately zero chance that any bank is going to undertake developing a new transfer protocol.
> 
> How many banks and financial houses still allow CVS download? All of ours do: TD Ameritrade (recently bought by Schwab), Fidelity, Fidelity Credit Card, Synovus Bank, Synovus Card Services, USAA (recently integrated software-wise with Schwab), and American Express Credit Card.
> 
> How much effort to add a hook to GNU Cash to initiate the download?
> 
> How much effort to add a CVS to GNU Cash converter?
> 
> All of those CSV converters would probably require help from users having accounts, and maybe a first step would be a Perl (or Raku) CSV => OFX (or some other useful format) converter which I could help with.
> 
> I already have some converters from CSV to other formats for Fidelity and TD Ameritrade products (in Raku), but I haven't looked at OFX in a long time (I do not enjoy working with XML in the least, but converting to XML is not so bad).
> 
> I would also be willing to donate to the effort if it were deemed feasible and of interest.
> 
> -Tom