What Does the Gold Key Mean?

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: How do I see most recent posts first in the list?.

JLSchutt

[Removed- Readbility] In my case, I observed a small gold key icon while downloading transactions from financial institutions and wondered about the meaning of the key. I specified "key icon" in a search and found a number of posts, a few of which were helpful, but they were from many different years. Having them sorted by year would have been useful.

Boatnmaniac

@JLSchutt - Is this the small gold key you saw?

If so, Quicken uses two different connection channels (routings) for One Step Update (OSU).  One is the traditional FDS channel.  The other is a newer QCS channel.  FDS channel is in the process of being phased out and replaced with QCS.  These gold keys indicate a few things:

• Your Quicken is set up with QCS channel.
• The Financial Institutions (FI) that have the key are set up with Express Web Connect (EWC), not Direct Connect (DC).  You can read up about these connection methods at Connection Types in Quicken [Support Article]. 
• It indicates that the FI login information (user ID and PW) have been entered and are securely saved on the aggregator's server so you do not need to enter the login information, again.  (With FDS, these keys are not shown.  Instead it shows that your EWC login information is saved in your PW Vault...even though the login information is also saved on the aggregator's server, too.  With DC, whether FDS or QCS channel, you will never see these keys since the login information is save only in PW Vault on your hard drive.)
  

You can read more about FDS vs QCS for EWC here: https://www.quicken.com/support/why-dont-i-need-enter-my-bank-password-download-my-bank.

Does this answer your question?

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: How do I see most recent posts first in the list?.

JLSchutt

Boatnmaniac, thank you for your advice. I will do some reading using the link you provided later today.

Two of the logins in my list that looks like your list above are Schwab logins, and they indeed have the keys shown above. They are the only logins with keys. There are actually five Schwab investment accounts divided among the two login accounts. At the present time all five of those show the Direct Connect connection method. Perhaps that is the problem, since you say a login with a key should be using Express Web Connect.

Chris_QPW

It is really "funky" that the gold key now means that you can't/don't have to enter a password for the Express Web Connect accounts, because the original use for it on Direct Connect accounts was that you can select it and change the password from there.

As in the financial institution allows for changing the password through Direct Connect.  And by changing it using the golden key it is changed at the financial institution and in Quicken's Password Vault all at once.

Chris_QPW

New use:

Chris_QPW

[Removed-Self-Referencing Thread/Readiblity]

Chris_QPW

Oh, wait, it probably a result of the moderators splitting off the comments to another thread.

Boatnmaniac

I agree, @Chris_QPW .  I would have thought a different symbol would have been selected for use with the QCS EWS accounts to mitigate potential confusion with how it had been used with DC.

Boatnmaniac

Yes, a Moderator split it off because the gold keys is a different subject than the original post of this thread.  I've flagged @JLSchutt 's last post to get it merged with the new post thread so the discussion can be continued there.

Boatnmaniac

JLSchutt said:

Boatnmaniac, thank you for your advice. I will do some reading using the link you provided later today.

Two of the logins in my list that looks like your list above are Schwab logins, and they indeed have the keys shown above. They are the only logins with keys. There are actually five Schwab investment accounts divided among the two login accounts. At the present time all five of those show the Direct Connect connection method. Perhaps that is the problem, since you say a login with a key should be using Express Web Connect.

Well, if you are now set up with DC for all your Schwab accounts, then by all means keep that and don't go back to EWC.  It is the best (most reliable, faster, most secure) connection method.  (BTW, I had thought that investment accounts require DC for downloads so I was surprised to see you had EWC set up with two accounts.)

Chris_QPW

Note that investment accounts are either Direct Connect or Web Connect (downloading a QFX file), Express Web Connect doesn't support investment accounts.