Is this Web Connect or Express Web Connect?

jmquickener

I have an account setup as:
Connection Type: Quicken Connect
Financial Institution: PNC - Web Connect

From what I've read (I may not have understood it correctly:) - Web Connect is for manually downloading, and Express Web Connect uses Quicken servers to download. My accounts are updating correctly without manually importing the updates, so is this "Express Web Connect" and not "Web Connect" ? Seems like the connection type and info should mention this.

Also, there have been some preference from a security standpoint in previous posts about Express Web Connect and a preference to Direct Connect. Is there substance to these arguments and I should be changing to Direct Connect?

thanks in advance!

Frankx

Hi @jmquickener,

As a Mac user - the term used for your type of connection is "Quicken Connect" but for Windows users they use a different name for this same process - they call it Express Web Connect".  Both of these use similar methodology whereby a "screen scrape" process extracts the data from the financial institutions websites and make it available for user download.  This process has been performed by a "middleman" in the past (i.e. Intuit, Inc.).

On the question about using the "Direct Connect" method - there is substance to strongly suggest using "Direct Connect".  It is a process that allows users to directly connect directly with the financial institution to download transaction data.  The process itself is therefore more efficient and more reliable, so I strongly suggest you use it when available.

Frankx

[edited to fix typos]

Frankx

Hi @jmquickener,

As a Mac user - the term used for your type of connection is "Quicken Connect" but for Windows users they use a different name for this same process - they call it Express Web Connect".  Both of these use similar methodology whereby a "screen scrape" process extracts the data from the financial institutions websites and make it available for user download.  This process has been performed by a "middleman" in the past (i.e. Intuit, Inc.).

On the question about using the "Direct Connect" method - there is substance to strongly suggest using "Direct Connect".  It is a process that allows users to directly connect directly with the financial institution to download transaction data.  The process itself is therefore more efficient and more reliable, so I strongly suggest you use it when available.

Frankx

[edited to fix typos]

jmquickener

Thank you Frank, much appreciated.

Is there any reason, any advantage to Web Connect? Or does it only exist for situation where Direct Connect isn't available?

Is either method a more or less stable connection?

Since it's working right now without any errors, can I switch back and forth without causing any hiccups in the process? or verification issues since it might be confused as unusual activity on the account?

thanks again

Frankx

Hi again @jmquickener,

Quicken Connect (for Mac) is the next best thing to Direct Connect from an "ease of use" perspective, because the process is more automated than the only other option - which is where you would have to login to the financial institution's website and download transactions and effectively import them into Quicken.  So, yes that would be used when neither of the other two are available. Direct Connect is very stable; Quicken Connect is less stable.

I do not believe that switching back and forth would be problematic from the financial institution's perspective, but that really could vary between financial institutions. From the Quicken perspective, I have found that staying with one connection method is less likely to cause issues than switching back and forth.

Take care!

Frankx