M&T Bank Direct Connect fix - invalid password FORMAT

avw3

I had been having a problem with Quicken for Windows connecting to M&T Bank for 6 months. It worked before then - even after the People's Bank merger. I would get different error messages, but the most common was "The password you entered is not valid for M&T Bank."

I finally reached someone at M&T who knew what they were doing and the first question she asked me was, "Do you have any special characters in your M&T online password? I said yes (because I try to use complex passwords), and she said that Direct Connect using Quicken or QuickBooks will not work if the password has any special characters and also if the password was not 8-10 characters long only. (My password was also 11 characters long.) If the password is shorter than 8 characters or longer than 10 characters, it will not work with Direct Connect using Quicken.

She said that M&T on-line password must contain one upper case letter, as well. So, even though the web site will let you create longer passwords with special characters, this will cause Direct Connect to fail. Minimum of 8 and maximum of 10 characters ONLY, one character must be an upper-case letter, and absolutely NO special characters.

I changed my M&T on-line password on their web site to what she recommended and then entered the new password into Quicken's Direct Connect settings for M&T Bank, and it immediately started downloading transactions.

I hope this helps others who are having problems with M&T Bank.

UKR

<SIGNONINFOLIST>

<SIGNONINFO>

<SIGNONREALM>CITI-REALM

<MIN>6

<MAX>32

<CHARTYPE>ALPHAORNUMERIC

<CASESEN>N

<SPECIAL>Y

<SPACES>Y

<PINCH>N

<CHGPINFIRST>N

<CLIENTUIDREQ>Y

</SIGNONINFO>

</SIGNONINFOLIST>

If you know how to look at the Quicken log file called OFX Log, you should be able to find a block of data transmitted from your bank very similar to the one shown above. (Search backwards from the bottom of the log to obtain info from the most recent download.)

This data block controls the password specifications, minimum, maximum length, special characters, etc.
The people at the bank seem to know what their Quicken settings are. Within restrictions of the OFX protocol, they should be able to update these settings to be more in line with the settings for the website.

Once the bank has made the changes on their side, perhaps with support from Intuit as the account manager for the downloads, and tested them, you should be able to change your Direct Connect passwords in Quicken to be longer and more complex.