Does anyone remember when Direct Connect was first introduced?

Chris_QPW

I got into this pretty early in 1996, but I suspect I was a bit late to the game and I certainly wasn't on any Quicken forum to hear any complaints. In 1996 when I came back to Quicken because I could now download transactions, I was using Wells Fargo, and I don't remember any problems I had with it. After a while I even paid for bill paying through it (something like $5 a month, which is ironic when you consider that price never went up and when I did get into the Quicken forums in 2007 people were still complaining about having to pay it).

But what got me to drop Wells Fargo is there nit-picking fees, a dollar here for that and dollar there for something else. Changed to NetBank (which is no longer around, many times over).

Anyways, I would be interested in if anyone remembers the actual rollout. If so, was it as bad as Express Web Connect + or much smoother. I suspect much smoother. At the time all you have was Quicken (the program) and then the financial institution's OFX server with Intuit charging to support them which I take was helping them get all the fields filled properly.

miklk

Don't really remember but copilot says:

While the exact launch date isn’t publicly documented, Direct Connect became widely available in the early 2000s as banks adopted OFX standards.

Chris_QPW

Now that I look at the history I see I wasn't late to the game:

Chris_QPW

BTW I think Express Web Connect + is the epitome of something that could be done in a simple manner but has been blown up into an extremely complicated and error prone system. And each player in this has had a part in making it that way.