RBC - Two Factor Authentication (2FA) Error

LostCanuck

I copied this post from @homerj650 as I have the exact same problem:

"I had set up everything for syncing my accounts with RBC and it was working fine. Now they have switched to two factor authentication and i am unable to connect. Called them, and they say it's an issue on Quicken's side. Has anyone experienced this with any other bank? When i try to allow the connection i get a "timed out" notification on my phone from the authentication process. Thanks for any help you can give."

Has anyone come up with a solution to this yet?

Cheers,

Randy

UKR

I assume you referring to this discussion, closed due to the customer never responding: https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7912458/sync-issue-with-two-factor-authentication#latest

Please confirm that you are using Quicken Windows Canadian version at one of the latest update levels, R43.xx

Have you tried the following procedure yet?

How to refresh financial institution information (Branding)

If your bank recently changed their website or password requirements please read and follow instructions here:
Quicken Uses Incorrect URL for Online Banking

For online billers please see if you can manage (remove and re-add or repair) the online biller, to see if their profile has already been updated.

If that doesn't resolve the issue:

• It is the bank's or biller's contractual obligation to notify their Quicken download service provider, Intuit, of any changes to their websites and download functions in a timely manner before the change is implemented. Intuit needs a sufficient amount of lead time to review, change and test their programs, to adapt to the changes the bank makes.
• The bank also needs to notify their customers of this change in a timely fashion and detail any actions that might be required by the customer to regain access after the change was introduced.
• If they didn't do that, complain to your bank's or biller's upper level management.
• Also contact Quicken Support via Chat or Phone at https://www.quicken.com/support#contact-support  during posted hours of operation and report this as an Online Banking issue, so that Quicken Support can escalate this issue to Intuit Inc.  Ultimately, however, the bank or biller must work together with Intuit on solving this update issue.

Please let us know if you were able to get this issue resolved (or not).

LostCanuck

Thanks...I just updated to R43.14. I'll let you know if this solves my problem.

Cheers,
Randy

Arctic Hare

I can confirm that what the OP described is, in fact, an ongoing issue with RBC Royal Bank. RBC Royal Bank started enforcing 2FA back in June. The way the RBC enforced 2FA works is that when the Intuit server (or any attempt from a web browser - not the RBC app) attempts to login into the bank account and download transactions, it will trigger a notification on one's mobile device (an iPhone in my case). One needs to "Allow" the access to the RBC account using the RBC App on the mobile device (an "allow" access page appears in the RBC App at this point) or the Intuit server is refused access. Because the Intuit server normally polls my RBC account between 11 PM and 1:00 AM, I generally wake up to a missed notification on my iPhone and no new transactions.

Back in June, I was able to get someone on RBC's digital enablement team and get the 2FA removed from my accounts. However, this past weekend RBC did some system upgrades that forced a reset of all the 2FA settings (at least it did for me). Now I'm back to where I was in June - waking up to missed "allow access" notifications each morning on my iPhone and no new transactions downloaded.

Like the OP indicated, if you have the patience to wait on hold with RBC for an hour, you'll eventually get connected to someone on the digital enablement team who will tell you that RBC now enforces 2FA and the problem is on Quicken's end, Quicken knows about it, and they have no idea what Quicken will do or when they will do something to solve it.

So, once again we are back to having major issues with downloading transactions from RBC Royal Bank... all the while a similar issue has been ongoing with BMO Bank of Montreal (my other bank) for about a year - that issue is noted in the alerts section; this one is not, but should be.

And, yes, I am using the most current version of Quicken Windows Canadian.

I have no solution to this issue other than possibly persuading RBC to manually override the 2FA on my accounts. The apparent solution to this would be for RBC's online banking to not enforce 2FA when it can establish that the login attempt is originating from Intuit's aggregation servers. That would require collaboration between RBC and Quicken....

Arctic Hare

One important additional comment to my earlier post, I believe that the reference to a "Timed Out" message is a reference to such a notice being produced by the RBC App, not Quicken. What is happening here is that the Intuit Aggregation server is attempting to login into RBC at some random time, not initiated by the user - when it does its daily login to download transactions. This triggers a notification in the RBC Mobile App; however, the user only has a very short window to click on "Allow" in the RBC App or the login attempt is rejected/aborted. If one doesn't click on the "Allow" button in the RBC Mobile Banking App almost immediately after it appears, it will produce a Time Out message - which indicates that you didn't click "Allow" fast enough. Again, the "Time out" message is from the RBC Mobile App, not from Quicken. Quicken doesn't actually produce an error message. The notice is on the mobile device, but the consequence is no transactions are downloaded. It still is a Quicken issue though because until there is a solution to the 2FA issue, those of use affected won't be able to download transactions using EWC - at least not without forcing an UpdateNow and managing to click the Allow button on the Mobile App just in time.

Arctic Hare

I have advised Quicken support via Help Chat and the built in Report a Problem feature. Hopefully, this gets the attention of the Online Banking Team and also gets listed as a known issue in that section here on the Community.

Latin

I just purchased Quicken Canadian today and having the same issue with RBC. I try to log in on Quicken desktop by putting my rbc details in and waiting with my phone open and unlocked so I can accept the push as soon as it comes. The push takes about a minute to come on my phone, meanwhile Quicken software times out and goes to one of my 3 security questions. At the same time the push finally comes on my phone. If I push accept immediately, the rbc push says timed out. If I go back to the quicken software which is now asking one of my three security questions and answer it correctly, nothing happens except quicken takes me back to square one to enter in my rbc password. I do this three times then get some code that apparently means I have to wait an hour to try to sign in again.
So frustrating. The software says it’s compatible with RBC, but it’s not.

Latin

> @"Arctic Hare " said:
> I have advised Quicken support via Help Chat and the built in Report a Problem feature. Hopefully, this gets the attention of the Online Banking Team and also gets listed as a known issue in that section here on the Community.

What’s the status on this? Will it be fixed before my 30 day refund guarantee is up. Purchased today and can’t do a thing with it because of this issue.

Arctic Hare

@Latin, in my experience with Quicken, I would expect a resolution to this issue could easily take a year or more. No, I'm not kidding. Quicken is typically very slow to address problems with downloading transactions from Canadian financial institutions. Fast resolutions are on the order 3 months - and that's when thousands of customers are complaining. I have waited up to five years for some bugs to be fixed and some never get fixed.

However...

The Express Web Connect method of downloading transactions will not work properly to download transactions from RBC Royal Bank if 2FA is enabled AND you have the RBC Mobile App installed AND you have at least one "Trusted Device" set in RBC Online Banking. You can, however, log into RBC Online Banking and turn the "Trusted Device" switch to OFF. Turning OFF "Trusted Device" will prevent RBC Online Banking from triggering a 2FA event in the Mobile App on your Trusted Device. If you turn Trusted Device OFF, Express Web Connect can work properly - you may need to answer a security question during a OSU once, but after that it will work normally as long as you leave "Trusted Device" set to OFF. The implication of doing this is that you won't have 2FA enabled for your RBC online banking.

Unfortunately, at this time, you need to choose between the enhanced security of 2FA (and causing problems with EWC) or disabling 2FA and allowing EWC to run smoothly with RBC Royal Bank.

Please do use the "Report a Problem" feature in Quicken to complain about this problem and please do open a ticket with Quicken support. The only way this will ever get properly fixed is to bring it to their attention - and, presently, it is NOT listed as a known issue in the online banking issue tracking.

Latin

Thanks so much for your reply. I tried online to connect RBC, same thing.
I tried turning the slider in RBC 2fa off in my online banking. I still get pushes to my phone. I called RBC this past weekend to ask why I still get push to my iphone when I turned OFF 2fa. She said it’ll still default to the last phone you used. I said that doesn’t sound very secure, what if I give my phone away? She says then when you login to rbc app with new phone you can switch device in rbc. But it sounds like once you use a device for 2fa you can never really go back to defaulting to text or answering one of the three questions. Yes you can say I don’t have device on rbc and click a different option but Quicken only seems to wait for push, then I click “allow” on push and it says timed out.
I wonder if the online version works for you because you already have the account in there and are just updating, whereas I’m trying to add RBC to a brand new quicken file. I don’t know but tried the online way as you suggested and exact same experience, no go. Guess I’ll just have to ask for my money back.

Latin

I’ve been on 2 different one hour calls with Quicken about this, so it should be listed somewhere. Was screen sharing and everything. They checked my version, whether I had antivirus or vpn etc. None of that. She could hear the push coming through on my phone and me saying pushing accept now, I couldn’t push accept any faster but it says “times up” everytimr. Then quicken asks me one of my three security questions, I answer It’s a 5 letter answer with one uppercase letter. I am not entering it wrong. Even copy pasted it from my RBC answers into the answer for quicken and it still goes in loops. It’ll loop 3 times like that and then I have to wait an hour to try again but nothing changes.

Latin

I just got off another call with RBC.
1) They treated me like a criminal because they said there was “failed” answers. When I tried to enter my answers in quicken after the push said “timed out”, I did NOT answer them wrong. But RBC is getting on their end failed Answers.
2) I reanswered my questions on rbc website (correctly - as I did when in Quicken) and then they’d talk to me. Confirmed: 2FA can never be turned off. The slide button that clearly says “Off” under 2FA in security is actually fake, the button does nothing except let you change to a new device. Can’t be turned off.

3) new RBC accounts with 2fa already added and trying to link to Quicken for the first time, does not work in Quicken. Quicken needs to fix this. Maybe some people have no trouble updating rbc with 2fa, but I can definitely not add it. The push times out and When quicken takes me to one of my three security questions, even if I answer them correctly, RBC sees it as a question answered incorrectly. I am not typing it in incorrectly. It’s a simple answer and I’ve looked at it before pressing enter to ensure I didn’t make typo or capslock error.

I’ll be asking Quicken for my money back. Any suggestions for software that does the same thing as Quicken that doesn’t ignore programming errors for one of Canada’s major banks?

Arctic Hare

@Latin: what you want to turn OFF is "Trusted Device". If you turn Trusted Device OFF in RBC Online Banking, Express Web Connect does work fine. I successfully download from RBC daily using Express Web Connect. You can also make it work without turning off Trusted Devices in RBC Online Banking, but it is tricky and I'll have a difficult time describing how to get that working for you without be able to actually show you.

I've attached a screenshot of the setting in RBC Online Banking.

Quicken does not permit recommendations of alternative products on this forum - which is reasonable... it is their community/forum.

There is the option to use the Web Connect method. It is more secure and robust - it always works... it is just less convenient. Have you tried using Web Connect at all? I suggest you try that first and then you can "upgrade" the connection type to EWC - after you turn OFF Trusted Device RBC Online Banking.

LostCanuck

@Arctic Hare and @Latin thanks for the great details and discussion. I have been traveling lately and just logged into Quicken Community.

I logged onto Quicken this morning and did my automatic download, fully expecting the same issue. However, for some reason everything seemed to work today.

Also, in the past where the 2FA timed out on my phone, Quicken still downloaded my transactions. In my case I don't have Quicken paying any bills for me automatically, that is all done directly through credit cards or bank accounts.

Hopefully, this is resolved, but I think I might just have got lucky this morning.

Cheers

Arctic Hare

Quicken Bill Pay is not available in Canada

Arctic Hare

LostCanuck said:

@Arctic Hare and @Latin thanks for the great details and discussion. I have been traveling lately and just logged into Quicken Community.

I logged onto Quicken this morning and did my automatic download, fully expecting the same issue. However, for some reason everything seemed to work today.

Also, in the past where the 2FA timed out on my phone, Quicken still downloaded my transactions. In my case I don't have Quicken paying any bills for me automatically, that is all done directly through credit cards or bank accounts.

Hopefully, this is resolved, but I think I might just have got lucky this morning.

Cheers

@LostCanuck - Is Quicken's One Step Update still downloading transactions for you from RBC Royal Bank with 2FA enabled and with the RBC Mobile App installed and working on your mobile device?

LostCanuck

@Arctic Hare I gave up on the 2FA and went back to downloading a QFX file from the RBC webpage. The One Step Update is convenient, but not worth the hassle. Going back old school

Arctic Hare

LostCanuck said:

@Arctic Hare I gave up on the 2FA and went back to downloading a QFX file from the RBC webpage. The One Step Update is convenient, but not worth the hassle. Going back old school

For whatever reason, I simply switched off the "Trusted Device" and OSU and EWC have run without issue since then. That being said, Quicken & Intuit should figure out how to properly resolve the 2FA issue such that switching off Trusted Device is not required.