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Another one (Truist Direct Connect) bites the dust: what's the Quicken long term play here?

John QW

Attention Truist customers (although you probably all got notified by now)… they are ending support for Quicken Direct Connect as of 12/03/26. You have until then to switch to Express Web Connect, but as we and they know, that's the end of Quicken-based bill pay uploads. Don't worry, you can call their help line, and they will support you through this 'transition'.

In the past and over the last 35 years as a Quicken customer, I've switched banks anytime they a) dropped DC and/or B) started charging me a monthly fee that I couldn't avoid (without some minimum balance/account requirements). I'm going to try to do the same here now and try to jump ship, but the (DC) choices are dwindling fast.

I also knew/know from (privy) direct discussions with the aforementioned banks that I was deeply connected to some of the rather pricey licensing/financials involved in maintaining DC (in the past, prior to the private equity acquisition(s) ). Said banks were motivated to get out from under it.

As we are seeing these days, the move to EWC/EWC+ is across the board: (newer) (more secure) interfaces, more benefits, yada. But inherent DC Billpay upload from Quicken is not supported in EWC.

Certainly, the lack of bill pay upload decreases the Stickiness of the Quicken subscription. I know it's just the community forum here, but I'll pose the question: what is the business plan? If I have to log in to my local bank to do all my bill pays (via their web interface), that's hours less I'm in Quicken, and it makes me start to figure out what else I can/should do instead (outside the subscription tool).

If the long-term play is that DC does go away(And there is no bill pay upload alternative), how does that factor into the strategy going forward?

[Edited - Readability]

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Comments

Sceptic

@John QW I think you're raising a fair question, but it's worth separating what Quicken controls from what the financial institutions control.

The industry trend has clearly been away from Direct Connect and toward EWC/EWC+, and when a bank decides to discontinue Direct Connect, features that depended on it, such as Direct Connect bill payment, unfortunately go away as well. That decision is generally driven by the financial institution rather than Quicken.

As for Quicken's long-term strategy, I suspect the value proposition today is different than it was when many of us first started using it. For some users, Direct Connect bill payment was a major reason to stay in Quicken. For others, the primary value is account aggregation, transaction downloads, budgeting, reporting, investment tracking, tax planning, and maintaining years of financial history in one place.

That said, I do think your concern is valid. Every time a bank removes Direct Connect support, Quicken loses one of the more interactive banking features that helped distinguish it from simply logging into a bank's website. So the question becomes how Quicken continues to add value as more institutions move toward aggregator-based connectivity and away from traditional OFX/Direct Connect services.

It'll be interesting to see whether the future is simply managing payments through bank websites, further expansion of Quicken Bill Manager, or some new API-based payment capabilities offered by financial institutions. Either way, banks themselves, not Quicken, are increasingly dictating the direction of bank connectivity.

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Boatnmaniac

Yes, the migration away from DC to EWC+ (not EWC) is something that many financial institutions are doing largely to reduce costs (not just the fees they have to pay to Quicken's aggregator, but also because the basic protocol behind EWC+ is something they are standardizing with all the 3rd party applications/aggregators ultimately reducing their I/T costs) and it will significantly improve their control of their system security. But it is a very disappointing move for us Quicken users who have long enjoyed using DC Bank Bill Pay.

When the migration from DC to EWC+ started several years ago, I decided to do something that has greatly reduced my need for DC Bank Bill Pay or even Quicken's Bill Manager service.

I have gone into my online accounts for all repeating billers (i.e., credit cards, utilities, property tax, etc.) and set up auto pay in full for each of them. Now they automatically debit my checking account each time a bill is due on the bill's due date. This is the most reliable method for paying bills since if they fail to payl on time, it is on them and there is never a late payment penalty. I also have recurring bill reminders set up for each of them, and when I get the bill statements, I will modify the payment amount if needed.
For the occasional random ad hoc bills, I usually pay the bills on the billers' website.

I now use DC Bank Bill Pay only 1-3 times a month, so if/when my bank drops DC, it will not be a big challenge like it would have been a couple of years ago.

For those who wish to move from bank-to-bank when DC disappears, see the following Support Article. It's a little out of date, but it does list many of the banks that still support DC with Bank Bill Pay.: https://www.quicken.com/support/list-banks-support-bank-bill-pay-quicken .

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NotACPA

Like @Boatnmaniac, almost all of my bills are paid via Direct Debit.

ptladasue

Also, like Boatmaniac and NotACPA, the majority of my bills are paid with Electronic Fund Transfers from the billers' website.

JohnA

I will survive this transition since I’ve always made sure that if direct connection is not working, I can send payments via Web/Mobile App. This means that 99% of my bills are paid by the billing institution’s mechanisms. The very few bill payments I send are not repeating automatically. So I’m in a good position.

Unfortunately, I think any bank is being short-sighted here for better short-term cash flow. When you remove discriminators such as Direct Connect, there is less of a reason to stay with the bank, which means fewer customers. In this case, I suspect that the numbers look good for the short term, but not long term. It makes more sense if an acquisition or merger is in the works, though.

[Edited - Readability]

jtemplin

@JohnA "When you remove discriminators such as Direct Connect, there is less of a reason to stay with the bank, which means fewer customers."

But how many, really? I get the impression that dealing with Quicken integration and its issues aren't very high on the list of many banks' priorities.

That seems especially true with smaller banks and credit unions. I moved my accounts from a credit union when their EWC+ transition caused many issues and downloads broke several times a year.

While I understand many of the new-age web-based financial programs use the aggregators, are there still enough desktop Quicken users to move the needle in influencing change? Dunno.

JohnA

Truist is one of the larger banks with half a trillion in assets. With the merger of BB&T with Suntrust, they took great pains to satisfy their large business customers, many of whom used Direct Connect with QuickBooks. Something seems to be different.