Does Quicken plan to develop a Direct Connect alternative to pay bills directly from Quicken?

Keeley_K

I use to pay hundreds of bills every month for clients using Direct Connect. One entry into Quicken and done. Will the new connection method eventually permit 2-way communication again allowing for bill pay directly through Quicken.

NotACPA

Probably not. And Q only announces new features JUST before they are released.

Lastly, it's your FI, not Q that decides what download method to use.

Boatnmaniac

The new EWC+ connection method (I think for QMac users it is still called Quicken Connect) is Intuit's/Quicken's response to a new standard developed by the FDX Consortium as a means to, at least in part, "improve security". Just whose security do you think is going to be improved by this? I'm pretty sure that the financial institutions are looking out for their own best interests first with their customers' best interests coming in second. Financial institutions have long made it known that they view a 3rd party software being able to access their systems (like DC does) is a risk to their security. By switching to EWC+ they will no longer have that 3rd party software intrusion taking place thereby improving their security.

I guess I can't blame them. After all, most of the data breaches that occur are because some outside party was able to find a security weakness in some point of access into the financial institution's system. The easiest way of stopping those breaches is to prohibit access which EWC+ does. So I would be surprised if they reverse course on this by allowing 2-way communications, again….at least not any time soon.

At this point, if you want to use Bill Pay you will need to:

• Move the bank accounts to other banks that still support DC. But this is likely just a short-term improvement because many banks will be eventually dropping Direct Connect for EWC+. (I know of a few people who recently finished moving their Chase and BofA checking accounts to PNC and US Bank only to be informed in the last few weeks that PNC and US Bank will soon be cutting in EWC+.)
• Or do the Bill Pays from within the Bank's website.
• Or take advantage of Quicken's Bill Manager QuickPay (EFT/ACH) or CheckPay (printed & mailed checks) services. But QuickPay does not currently work with EWC+ so snail mail CheckPay might be the only viable option at this time.

BTW, the FDX Consortium is comprised of many of the largest USA and Canadian financial institutions (https://www.financialdataexchange.org/FDX/FDX/The-Consortium/Members.aspx). The members are beginning to force this new FDX standard on all of the 3rd party software companies they work with so Quicken is not alone in being impacted by this.

pepito141

I am a PNC user who just lost my DC and bill pay ability. What is the real allure of staying with Quicken w/o the bill pay?

I'm not going to lie, this sucks 🤬

Boatnmaniac

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20361558#Comment_20361558

Quicken already does offer an alternative to DC Bank Bill Pay in their Bill Manager option. They utilize a third party to pay bills via either QuickPay (ACH/EFT transfers) or CheckPay (printed & mailed checks). Unfortunately, those banks that have or will have cut in EWC+ the QuickPay feature is not supported so it is only via CheckPay.

Moderators have posted that Quicken is exploring options to restore the QuickPay feature but we likely will not get any details on that unless and until they are ready to cut it in.

I don't know if the banks that are switching to EWC+ will ever permit another means to be able to pay bills like has been done with DC Bank Bill Pay. It is the banks who are in control on this matter, not Quicken nor any of the other 3rd party financial softwares. They have decided for whatever reason to no longer support DC. The way a Moderator once explained it: The banks are telling Quicken to get on board with the new connection method or to start telling their customers that they will no longer be able to download anything.

I am a PNC customer, as well. My accounts were set up in a couple of TEST files with EWC and today they were changed to EWC+ but my DC account (in my main data file) were not changed to EWC+….at least not so far.

The EWC—>EWC+ transition for my TEST files had a lot of issues (at least for me).:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7934004/pnc-transitioning-ewc-to-ewc-within-the-next-1-2-months

In my main data file my PNC accounts are set up with DC and they did not change, yet. Have you found any issues in your account(s) that were changed from DC to EWC+?

Boatnmaniac

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20361558#Comment_20361558

I know not having the DC Bank Bill Pay feature not available is very disappointing but at least we can still log into our online account at PNC and schedule Bill Pays there.

Also, I have set up autopay on most of my billers' websites so that each month they pull the payments directly from PNC or my credit card requiring no action on my part each month other than to review the statements and make sure the transaction is entered into the checking or credit card registers before the payments are processed. Then when the payment transactions are downloaded into Quicken they will get matched with the transactions I'd entered earlier.

Everyone who uses Quicken uses it for different reasons. For me, the main attraction is that it gives me the opportunity to see all of my finances in one place. For me, having DC Bank Bill Pay has been a great feature but it has not been the most important thing about Quicken. You might feel otherwise and if that is the case then you will need to decide if it is worth continuing to use Quicken.

jacobs

@pepito141 said: What is the real allure of staying with Quicken w/o the bill pay?

As @Boatnmaniac said, we all use Quicken differently. I have never used any of Quicken's bill pay services, but I use and value Quicken for other reasons. I like having all my financial accounts gathered in one place. I particularly like having a long-term record — in my case, more than 30 years — of all my transactions in one place. (Try looking up transactions from 5 or 7 or 15 years ago on your bank's or credit card website!) You may have alternatives, or not find those things particularly useful… in which case you may not continue to find Quicken useful to you.

Boatnmaniac

@pepito141 - Have you confirmed that your connection method has actually been changed from DC to EWC+? Take a look at what it says directly under the name of the account in the upper left hand corner of the Account Register. It should say what your connection method is.

I am asking because while I and others have assumed current DC connection errors is due to being transitioned to EWC+ (since EWC is being transitioned to EWC+ at this time), it appears the DC issue might actually be a different issue where PNC has locked DC connections (at least for some people). Some have reported they talked to PNC Tier 3 tech support to get their DC connections unlocked. Then they were able to deactivate/reactivate (or do Add Account or Set Up Now if the account was already deactivated) using the PNC Bank - Direct Connect setup link with their PNC DC userID and their original PNC-supplied DC PW. This happened to me a couple of weeks ago. But now it seems to be affecting some others.

If this does resolve the PNC DC issue for you, then you can be happy to get a reprieve for a while. Eventually PNC will be discontinuing DC but apparently that is not taking place right now. It will probably occur shortly after when PNC has completed the transition of EWC accounts to EWC+.

pepito141

I do appreciate the ability to view my accounts from various institutions in one place. The historical data can also be an advantage to staying with quicken. And yes, I know it isn't Q that has brought these negative changes about. I have left more than 1 bank for not supporting Q or charging me to use it (looking at you WF!).

Recently, I received an email from Q that indicated DC for PNC is not necessarily going away and sorry if we confused you by saying that it was. Of course this was music to my ears. As of this date, I have still been unable to get DC working again, but for sure it would provide enough added value to me to maintain my subscription. Any other PNC peeps get that email? Have you had success going back to DC?

I may end up dumping all these big banks and revert to keeping my loot under my mattress 🤣

newittja

@pepito141 I got the PNC email. I am one of the ones who switched their account to EWC+. No, now I can't seem to switch back to DC after following the instructions from Quicken. PNC keeps refusing my authentication after entering my credentials after using the original PIN and entering and confirming the new one. I entered my credentials accurately despite the error message.

I had disconnected my PNC account from EWC+ to initiate this process, and now I cant even connect again via that method because it seems PNC has some issue today with any connection.