CapitalOne 360 Checking vs American Express Rewards Checking

bwentzel13

Bank of America and Quicken are soon to retire Direct Connect which is causing me to reconsider where we want to bank and I've narrowed prospective replacements to CapitalOne and Amex. Quicken in virtually THE interface to our BoA checking account. In fact, I'm not sure I have ever used BoA's site to pay a bill. Credit card payments after reconciliation, recurring loan payments, and individual bill payments are all done through Quicken and I'm looking for the same functionality with this new account. Do you manage a CapitalOne or Amex checking account through Quicken and if so, what has your experience been? Are there caveats I need to be aware of and consider?

I have a Quicken Premiere subscription and I use Windows.

BK

A comment about the "Direct Connect" connection: Almost all Financial Institutions that offer DC have been considering discontinuation of that method.  If, when, and which ones is unknown and a few may never go thru with it.  When the majors like Schwab, Chase, and BofA make that move, the writing is on the wall.  Something to consider when looking for the alternatives.

bwentzel13

> @BK said:
> A comment about the "Direct Connect" connection: Almost all Financial Institutions that offer DC have been considering discontinuation of that method.  If, when, and which ones is unknown and a few may never go thru with it.  When the majors like Schwab, Chase, and BofA make that move, the writing is on the wall.  Something to consider when looking for the alternatives.

That's a really good point. To be honest, there's a bit of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) on my part with switching to Quicken Bill Manager since I don't recall ever having used it. Does it function similarly to Direct Connect? For example, today when I reconcile a credit card account. I'm two or three clicks away from sending a payment instruction to BofA which the credit card company receives electronically one or two business days later.

BK

bwentzel13 said:

... That's a really good point. To be honest, there's a bit of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) on my part with switching to Quicken Bill Manager since I don't recall ever having used it. Does it function similarly to Direct Connect? ...

Sorry I don't know!  I can only share with you what has worked for me and may not be for everyone.  I [auto] setup all my bill pays in BofA's bill pay website in mid 2000 before I knew what Quicken was.

Since I started using Quicken ~ 2010, I never bothered with its bill pay features.

Quicken is a view to my financials; my bank takes care of my transactions (bill pay, transfers, etc) where all automated.  Given so many years of auto-pays and no errors, I trust my bank.

For example, today when I reconcile a credit card account. I'm two or three clicks away from sending a payment instruction to BofA which the credit card company receives electronically one or two business days later.

I am literally zero clicks: I spend no time in bill pay in general because (a) everything is automated in my bank's bill pay system and (b) Quicken shows me that all is taken care of.

Example: if my credit card bill is $73.21, BofA automatically pays it in full 5-days ahead of time based on my preset instructions (of pay in full, 5-days prior to due date) without my intervention, and so on for the next month.  With this approach, any change in the relationship between Quicken and the bank is irrelevant because I keep them at an arm's length.  Hope this helps.

Jon

bwentzel13 said:

Do you manage a CapitalOne or Amex checking account through Quicken and if so, what has your experience been? Are there caveats I need to be aware of and consider?

American Express only allows Direct Connect for their credit cards; they don't use it for banking. I found that out the hard way last year when I opened an Amex savings account. So you're not going to find what you're looking for there.

I've never had Capital One bank accounts, only credit cards. I don't know whether they use Direct Connect for banking or not.

I have a Discover savings account that uses Direct Connect, so that's one institution that still supports it for banking. I don't know what sort of bill pay support they have.

BK

According to the FIDir file, CapitalOne 360 does not offer Direct Connect either.