Bank of America....EWC+ Connection

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Chris_QPW

BTW when one is looking at this from the financial institution's perspective you get numbers like this.

One large financial institution said that Quicken users are less than 1% of their customers.
Then next we take the fact that there are only about 2000 financial institutions (and going down) that support Direct Connect.  And probably in the hundreds that support bill pay through Direct Connect.
Contrast that to Express Web Connect which is 15,000+ financial institutions (and growing).

So, even though there might be a fairly high percentage of people using bill pay (or just syncing bill payments to Quicken) at say Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, of the users using Direct Connect, in the scheme of things supporting this has been diminishing returns for lots of years from the financial institution's perspective.

And based on the above numbers, most Quicken users have never used it because they are using Express Web Connect, not Direct Connect.

Gopher651

> @Chris_QPW said:
> Personally, I don't consider this defending Quicken.  I consider it stating the facts.
>
> And as for solutions, many have already been stated, but people want what isn't available.  Fine, see how that works for you in the world.

He voiced his dissatisfaction with lost functionality to him. If enough people voice an opinion maybe things can change "in the world".

Mark1104

 @denmarfl- as a long time BofA customer (20+ years) and a long time Qucken user (25+ years), I've never understood why I would use QUicken BillPay when I have BofA billpay available? would you mind explaining the benefits of Q over Bofa Billpay?  given BofA's size, that will probably cover at least 10% of Q's customer base.  

in the past 25 years, the banking world has shifted dramatically, but Quicken is still what it was at it's origin - an electronic check register that automates most all of the check register tasks

Banks have introduced tools over 25 years that provides real time updates to balances that simply did not exist back then.  Who needs an electronic check register (Quicken) when the Bank's Online Banking platform, accessible on a smart phone that most anyone under 60 years old carries provides the up-to-the minute bank balance?   Can Quicken do that? And even if if can, why pay $70 or so each year for that benefit, when the Bank provides it for free? 

You may think there is a large base of Quicken Users, but I think otherwise. Q is just a declining part of the market.  Most users on these boards state they have been a user for 20 years or more, which means they are part of the 'dying breed' and the younger generation is just going to continue to use the smart phone and the bank's apps.  The Banks have the upper hand in what they will offer and not offer; Quicken doesn't have the market power to dictate the communication method (e.g. DC vs EWC+), esp. since the top ten banks control something like 80% of the deposits in the country (which was not true when Quicken first hit the market 30 years ago) and therefore the similar ownership of checking accounts. 

Greg_the_Geek

Gopher651 said:

> @Chris_QPW said:
> Personally, I don't consider this defending Quicken.  I consider it stating the facts.
>
> And as for solutions, many have already been stated, but people want what isn't available.  Fine, see how that works for you in the world.

He voiced his dissatisfaction with lost functionality to him. If enough people voice an opinion maybe things can change "in the world".

You're barking up the wrong tree. Even if every poster in the Quicken Community voiced an opinion, Quicken can't the world. It's up to the banks to change "in the world".

Jon

Quicken's list of financial institutions they can interface with has over 17 thousand entries. About 1500 of them support Direct Connect (less than 10%) and about 500 support Direct Connect & Bill Pay (around 3%). Of course, not all those banks are going to have the same number of customers; Bank of America users will outnumber users of the small local B&M bank where I have a savings account & lock box. OTOH, BoA stopped allowing Direct Connect for new customers years ago (I don't know exactly when they stopped but when I opened accounts there 2 years ago I couldn't get it). And even the ones that do support DC don't support it across the board - for example American Express supports DC but only for credit cards, not bank accounts. Overall I think the percentages speak for themselves.

As for PC vs mobile:
In 2020, web site traffic from phones & tablets was roughly 2x that from PCs.
In the last 12 months, mobile & tablet sales were about 1.5x that of PCs. (Keep in mind that PC sales include business PCs. At my last job we had more PCs than people, which makes me think there are a lot of households out there with no PCs at all, just phones, tablets & consoles.)

Personally, while I still have the majority of my accounts set up with Direct Connect it's been 20 years since I had a bank account that supported DC & Bill Pay.

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denmarfl

"as a long time BofA customer (20+ years) and a long time Qucken user (25+ years), I've never understood why I would use QUicken BillPay when I have BofA billpay available? would you mind explaining the benefits of Q over Bofa Billpay? "

Need to be sure we are referring to the same service. 

Quicken Bill Pay is a 3rd party provider that works with Quicken to Pay Bills...Quicken is providing this service free for 1 Year.  This service actually requires your ID and Password for the Biller website to pay the Bill.  You do enter payment request using Quicken.

BofA Bill pay....which is what I used since 2001.  BofA would Pay the Bill direct to the Biller either Electronically or by Mailing a check....so the payment is mailed electronically...or a paper check is put in the mail.  BofA Bill Pay's were netered directly into the Register of the Quicken software of the BofA Checking acct you setup as a BILL Pay Acct.

The benefit for me was, I would enter my Bill requests and BofA Transfer between BofA accts into Quicken, connect with DC...Bill and Transfer uploaded to BofA...and were processed.  With EWC+...I must do Bank entry work in 2 places.  Entry for Bill Pay & Transfers at the BofA Online Banking site.  Than, make entries for these same requests into the Quicken register (I normally add some details to Payments/Transfers which is available in Q Registers.  At BofA Online, there is an Option to ADD a NOTE for Bill Payments, none for Transfers.

So the benfit of having had...DC and BofA Bill Pay...all entry was done in Quicken and uplaoded to the BofA via DC...One place to do all Banking.  In the 20+ years using Q with DC, and BofA, I rarely ever signed into the BofA Site.   

Chris_QPW

I personally like to describe Bill Pay Direct Connect as Quicken acting as a GUI for the financial institution's bill payment system.

With it you can create a scheduled payment in Quicken and that will sync to the financial institution's bill payment system.  Furthermore, you can create a scheduled payment on the financial institution's website or in their mobile App and it will sync back to Quicken.

Note that it also allowed making transfers in Quicken from one account at the financial institution to another at the same financial institution.

Another way of looking at this is that Quicken behaves like their Mobile App/Website, you expect whatever you do on one of them, it will reflect on the other.

There is no doubt that this was/is a useful feature.  But I will point out that the Quicken customers, myself included had a hand in killing it.

When I used it at Wells Fargo some 30 years ago, I was charged something like $5 a month for Direct Connect and $5 for bill pay through it.  Think of that in terms of inflation from 30 years ago.  I actually changed to "Netbank" because of being "nickeled and dimed".

These days some charge like $2 for both and people still complain about paying it.  They say, "I paid for Quicken, why should I have to pay for this service.".

And on top of this Intuit charged the financial institution a yearly fee based on how many users were using it (and probably still does).  Not to mention the financial institution has to run the OFX server and have people trained to support it.

I don't really blame Intuit for the charges though like some people do.  Microsoft didn't charge them, and so eventually they got out of the business.

Note that the credit unions were the first to drop Direct Connect, they couldn't justify paying for it when so few of their customers used it, and the people using it wanted it for free.  That just put a burden on the other users to pay for something they weren't using.

BarryGraham

Mark1104 said:

Who needs an electronic check register (Quicken) when the Bank's Online Banking platform, accessible on a smart phone that most anyone under 60 years old carries provides the up-to-the minute bank balance? 

You may think there is a large base of Quicken Users, but I think otherwise. Q is just a declining part of the market.  Most users on these boards state they have been a user for 20 years or more, which means they are part of the 'dying breed' and the younger generation is just going to continue to use the smart phone and the bank's apps.  The Banks have the upper hand in what they will offer and not offer; Quicken doesn't have the market power to dictate the communication method (e.g. DC vs EWC+), esp. since the top ten banks control something like 80% of the deposits in the country (which was not true when Quicken first hit the market 30 years ago) and therefore the similar ownership of checking accounts. 

You can't track all your bank and credit card balances and spending with the same ease and speed as you can in Quicken, and having an accurate record in Quicken makes filing taxes a lot quicker than it would it if you were simply to rely on bank-provided data.  Your approach might work for someone that only has one account and doesn't use credit cards.

Chris_QPW

I have a suggestion for people in this thread, including for myself.

It is all well and good to state what is available what one uses, but people should realize that every person use is a bit different, and after you have posted "your information", we should just leave it at that, and not try to push your way of doing it on others.

But on the same score, people complaining over and over that Quicken Inc/Bank of America took this method away are really not doing anything complaining here.

P.S. This is going to be my late post in this thread.

denmarfl

Even tho less useful; BofA tried to walk me thru creating a customized report.  First, the steps to create the customized report were unreal and to me Complicated.  Second, as I mentioned to the BofA agent, creating a Customized report at BofA only include BofA activity...whereas creating a Customized reportin Quicken...it can include entries of many different Institutions.  So in order to keep my Customized reports updated now, I must Manually add Catorgories and Memo.  So its entering Banking details at 2 Places, bank & Quicken.  I realize this is not going to change, BofA is not going to suddenly reverse Course....   I paid Zero for Quicken DC ever since I began using it in 2001 at BofA because whatever balances...types of accts were required to support it free...I had.  Even tho BofA paid Intuit/Quicken a fee for DC, the offset was me being the BofA Teller and backroom Processor....over the 20yrs I am sure I saved BofA direcftly or indirectly....money.  What comes back to me is a conversation I had with a BofA Tech Support agent about 2 years ago when he kindda mentioned that BofA was having issues with DC for users connecting and the connection contained 5 or more Bill pays....sometimes their system experienced issues, they were experimenting with some others processes to address the address the issue....and I asked about the future of DC, his answer was a bit Vague.  

I still may test Drive Wells fargo Bill Pay with Q...DC.  I tried truist and since they use a 3rd party to process bills send via DC...there is no evidence of that upload at the truist site until the night before the Payment is to be processed...that I found a little unsettling.  

BarryGraham

Chris_QPW said:

I have a suggestion for people in this thread, including for myself.

It is all well and good to state what is available what one uses, but people should realize that every person use is a bit different, and after you have posted "your information", we should just leave it at that, and not try to push your way of doing it on others.

But on the same score, people complaining over and over that Quicken Inc/Bank of America took this method away are really not doing anything complaining here.

P.S. This is going to be my late post in this thread.

Well said.

BarryGraham

denmarfl said:

Interesting Statistics "among Quicken users, most weren't using Direct Connect; and among Direct Connect users most weren't using Bill Pay. So you're a minority within a minority within a minority within a minority."  Is there a source for this information?  Quicken has tracked and collected these Statistics and they are available for review?  When I read Postings in this community...and I have for many years, been using Quicken DC, Bill Pay since 2001....I always got a sense for at least those that Post here and respond here, most used these Quicken features.  If this is so, and this is my opinion, changing banks for DC would be only a short term Fix.  I would have thought the Number of Quicken users is quite large given the Size of Quicken, its IT team, Develope team and Support...that we Quicken users using the Software, the majority used DC and the Banks Bill Pay thru Quicken.  

I can't imagine why any Quicken user wouldn't be using Direct Connect if it available, since it's so much faster.

Robert Ralyea

We have to accept that DC is gone for good but we don’t have to accept Bill manager is a disaster.

Dr. L

I am very disappointed in the entire experience. Not only do many of the bill pay links fail to link, the checks take almost 3 weeks for the vendor to receive, not to mention the extra steps required to go to the individual vendor to electronically pay. This is definitely a step backward and I am re-evaluting whether to renew, albeit at a lower subscription (I have deluxe now) or simply just cancel. New technology is supposed to make things better, not take a step backward.

Dr. L

Does any bank offer a transaction register similar to quicken? I like the register because it lets me to "what if" with my money before I pay my bills. For me, this would then eliminate the need for quicken as everything would be online with the bank

Mark1104

@Dr. L - maybe I am not following, but have you used the BIll Pay at the BofA website / app? As I've asked others in different posts, how many BillPays do you do a month? Given the ability to pay via credit card, debit card, auto-debit, Zelle, biller's website, BillPay is not used as much as it was years and years ago. is it time to change habits is the real question. 

the driving reason behind  EWC+ is the security.  Unfortuneatly, over time, new technology lets "bad actors" steal money more readily - much more efficient for them to steal via unsecure communication methods than walk into the bank;s branch to steal cash.  So while technology makes things better for you, it also makes things better for the bad actors, resulting in EWC+ and Billpay is the collateral damage (because I suspect it wasn't worth the programming effort given much lower usage than 25 years ago) 

Chris_QPW

EDIT:  Since I want to refer to my explanation about the security of the connection types I have changed this post into a link to that discussion.

@Mark1104
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7922729/my-explanation-of-the-security-of-the-different-connection-types