BECU Express Web Connect versus Direct Connection

rdschmid

So it appears Quicken has closed all the discussions on BECU's past months of not working for DC; but haven't seen anyone address whether anything is gained by leaving (a working) Express Web Connect method for what BECU is now calling a new/safer Direct Connect method?

What is gained by making the switch??

Thanks, RD

Chris_QPW

Express Web Connect data flow:

Quicken (the program) ←> sync with Quicken Connection Services/server ←> Intuit server ←> financial institution

Note your username and password are stored on the Intuit server to provide this and both the Quicken and Intuit servers cache some of your transactions.

Direct Connect data flow:

Quicken (the program) ←> financial institution

Password either typed in by you or stored in Quicken's Password vault.

I think you can see the advantages.

Chris_QPW

There is another advantage of Direct Connect, but it doesn't apply to BECU. Direct Connect allows for connecting directly to a financial institution's bill payment system. So, bills can be paid directly from Quicken, but the financial institution has to provide that service and BECU doesn't.

rdschmid

Thanks https://community.quicken.com/profile/Chris_QPW

Appreciate the guidance. So BECU is fixing Direct Connect in some way per:
https://www.becu.org/news/online-banking-intuit-connection

Would it be fair to say they should no longer offer Express Web Connect if indeed Direct Connect is fixed?

-RD

Chris_QPW

I would say that most people would want Direct Connect over Express Web Connect, but it usually doesn't hurt to have both. The one thing you have to make sure of is while setting it up you get what you want. That might take going into the Advanced Settings while setting it up.

Skyking86

Of course, all that is moot. On December 26th, the BECU connection failed again. All I saw after 167 days of the previous outage was a two step authentication that was done once. My previous set up worked until today, for maybe two weeks, three?