Are there any banks that interface well with Quicken

Quicken Windows Subscription Member
edited December 2023 in Paying Bills, Online Billers & Reminders (Windows)

Our bank recently sold out to BMO and I am having a terrible time getting Quicken to interact with them. Are there any banks that work well with Quicken? i would rather change banks than lose Quicken.

Tagged:

Welcome!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.
Sign In
Register

Best Answer

  • Quicken Windows Subscription SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    Answer ✓

    I have 6 different full service banks that I use and they all work pretty well with Quicken. I don't encounter error codes or other issues with them very often and when they occur they are usually resolved fairly quickly.:

    Transaction Downloads Only: These are set up with the EWC or EWC+ connection methods.

    • US Bank: An EWC+ connection that seems to work quite well. USB also offers DC with Bank Bill Pay for a small monthly fee.
    • Bremer Bank: A MN bank supports the EWC connection method.
    • Austin Telco FCU: A central TX credit union that supports the EWC connection method.

    Transaction Downloads Only:

    • Midland States Bank: A midwest regional bank but they do business nationwide (I live in TX). They support the DC connection method. They also support the EWC connection method but I have no experience with that with this bank.

    Transaction Downloads with Bank Bill Pay…DC with no monthly fee:

    • PNC Bank: They also support the EWC+ connection method but I don't have much experience with that with this bank.
    • Wells Fargo: They also support the EWC connection method which has a history of being problematic but they will soon be converting it to the EWC+ connection method so that might be an improvement. I am not sure if they will also be converting DC to EWC+…some banks have done that while others (like PNC and USB) have retained DC.

    There is also a list of banks that offer DC with Bank Bill Pay at https://www.quicken.com/support/list-banks-support-bank-bill-pay-quicken. Some of these banks will charge a monthly fee for DC connections and/or for DC Bank Bill Pay. So if you find a bank that interests you, you will need to research this on their website or give them a call to find out if it is free or if there is a monthly fee.

    Quicken Classic Premier (US) Subscription: R62.16 on Windows 11 Home

Answers

  • Quicken Windows Subscription SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    Answer ✓

    I have 6 different full service banks that I use and they all work pretty well with Quicken. I don't encounter error codes or other issues with them very often and when they occur they are usually resolved fairly quickly.:

    Transaction Downloads Only: These are set up with the EWC or EWC+ connection methods.

    • US Bank: An EWC+ connection that seems to work quite well. USB also offers DC with Bank Bill Pay for a small monthly fee.
    • Bremer Bank: A MN bank supports the EWC connection method.
    • Austin Telco FCU: A central TX credit union that supports the EWC connection method.

    Transaction Downloads Only:

    • Midland States Bank: A midwest regional bank but they do business nationwide (I live in TX). They support the DC connection method. They also support the EWC connection method but I have no experience with that with this bank.

    Transaction Downloads with Bank Bill Pay…DC with no monthly fee:

    • PNC Bank: They also support the EWC+ connection method but I don't have much experience with that with this bank.
    • Wells Fargo: They also support the EWC connection method which has a history of being problematic but they will soon be converting it to the EWC+ connection method so that might be an improvement. I am not sure if they will also be converting DC to EWC+…some banks have done that while others (like PNC and USB) have retained DC.

    There is also a list of banks that offer DC with Bank Bill Pay at https://www.quicken.com/support/list-banks-support-bank-bill-pay-quicken. Some of these banks will charge a monthly fee for DC connections and/or for DC Bank Bill Pay. So if you find a bank that interests you, you will need to research this on their website or give them a call to find out if it is free or if there is a monthly fee.

    Quicken Classic Premier (US) Subscription: R62.16 on Windows 11 Home

  • Quicken Windows Subscription Member

    thanks for your quick response. I will check these out.

  • Member ✭✭✭✭
    edited November 2023

    I'm interested in this topic because Truist (formerly BB&T) has become much less reliable for direct connect banking. Wells Fargo seems to be the only one with branches in the areas I need. Does anyone recommend for or against it for DC online banking? Thanks in advance!!

  • Quicken Windows Subscription SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭

    This discussion should answer your questions about Wells Fargo and Direct Connect, and perhaps @Boatnmaniac can provide an update.

    Wells Fargo Bill; Quicken

    denmarfl

    Some people are wary of Wells Fargo because of their poor treatment of customers a few years ago - creating accounts without their knowledge for example. Hopefully they have cleaned up their act.

    QWin Premier subscription
  • Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭✭✭

    Wells Fargo is in the process of terminating DC and switching to EWC+….. Wells Fargo has notified Quicken officially they will be moving to EWC+. I also opened accts at Wells Fargo…saw the same differences in Bill Pay you saw…overall I never moved my Quicken to Wells Fargo becuase most of my Online Payments were 2 to 3 days difference (Electronic payments) than they were at BofA. I still opinion EWC+ is a terrible Quicken connection….it makes for MORE entry Work…you are doing it twice, In Quicken, at the banks' Site. My current Subscription to Quicken has a few more months and after 35 years of using Q, I may not renew. When you speak with Quicken agents they put up this face that EWC+ is better, more secure. Of course it is, especially for Banks since Q users are no Longer Uploading data to the bank. But, in all my years of Using DC, not one time was I ever aware that Quicken DC caused any security breaches. I feel Quicken has failed those of us who have remained loyal to the Product for a very long time. I would wager to bet, new Quicken users have dropped, the current generation is not using Quicken, heck, most of them don't ever check their monthly Credit Bills for accuracy

  • Member ✭✭✭✭
    edited November 2023

    Oh my! This is indeed bad news! Then who DOES Quicken work well with? Should I just stay with Truist?

    (added) I looked at PNC but to all appearances they only seem to offer direct connect to businesses. Can anyone confirm or correct that?

  • Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭✭✭

    Truist's delay in my thinking is only because of the merger that took place …and more than likely do not wish to convert from DC to EWC+ just now. According to Quicken ALL Banks will be making the change to EWC+…. I also tried Truist….Payments made at Truists's site are processed faster than those made thru Quicken. Truist uses a 3rd party to Process Payments made with Quicken whereas if enter at the Truist site, Truist processes the payment. When I tried Truists' Bill Pay using Quicken….there was no evidence of that payment entry until the night before the payment was to be processed and I did not like that….

  • Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭✭✭

    @jschaffe said:

    But, in all my years of Using DC, not one time was I ever aware that Quicken DC caused any security breaches. I feel Quicken has failed those of us who have remained loyal to the Product for a very long time. I would wager to bet, new Quicken users have dropped, the current generation is not using Quicken, heck, most of them don't ever check their monthly Credit Bills for accuracy

    I definitely think that Quicken (and Quicken Inc) share some of the blame, but in reality, the main problem is our financial institutions/government. Most of this is out of Quicken Inc's or even Intuit's hands.

    Unlike in the EU, the US government has no mandate/rule that says that the financial institutions have to support downloading of transactions, let alone requiring them to use a standardized protocol.

    So, why did Direct Connect/OFX fail? In a nutshell, it wasn't adopted by most financial institutions. And on top of that Intuit charges a fee for supporting it (or at least use to), and so at least half of the financial institutions (starting with credit unions) dropped supporting it even after they had for years. About 4,500 out of more they 35,000 supported it at the highest. It is now down to far less than 2,000.

    And I will note that as far as I know that no security breach has ever been associated with using Direct Connect/OFX, and even if security was the main concern the newer versions of OFX (which no financial institution or Quicken support) have the same security model that Express Web Connect +/FDX is using (as an option).

    On the subject of security, one might say that because Express Web Connect/Express Web Connect +/FDX are more secure than Direct Connect/OFX because they don't allow for doing things like transfers and bill payments. But supporting these are totally option on the part of the financial institution and as such it is "fake concern".

    That brings us to Express Web Connect. Let's call it what it is: it is a hack to get around the fact that the financial institutions didn't want to properly support downloading of transactions. Web Connect means downloading a QFX file and importing it. The QFX file is simply the "response" part of the OFX protocol after asking for the transactions. "Express" comes in when someone say, "hey we can use the backend web browser API to log into the financial institution's website and get that QFX file that they already have there". Then you extend that thought to getting other formatted files or maybe even get the financial institution to provide some kind of API to do it. And "Boom" you now have "agreements" on how to do that between Intuit and a given financial institution (but no standard way of doing it).

    So, what is Express Web Connect +/FDX? It is nothing more than finally agreeing to use a standard protocol (FDX) between Intuit's server and the financial institution, which has better security and such than standard Express Web Connect. As in no storing usernames and passwords on Intuit's (or other aggregator's servers, because Quicken isn't alone in wanting at this data). Uses a rotating security token instead.

    But my prediction is that it will fail for the same reasons of Direct Connect/OFX (with maybe the exception of Intuit charging for support), not all of the financial institutions will adopt it no matter how optimistic Quicken Inc's is about it.

    Here is a list of the members currently supporting FDX.

    Site faviconAbout-FDX - The Consortium - All Members

    But the other major problem that Quicken faces is the very complicated system even before we talk about the connection between Intuit's servers and the financial institution.

    Quicken (the program) uses sync to Quicken Cloud to as the way to get the transaction in (and yes even if Sync to Mobile/Web is off). The Quicken Connection Services server in turn is what talks to the Intuit servers.

    Direct Connect/OFX talks directly between Quicken (the program) and the financial institutions. As such, its reliability is only governed by those two.

    For Express Web Connect + we have:

    Quicken (the program), Quicken Connection Service, Intuit servers, and the financial institution.

    Right off the bat, when something goes wrong there are a lot of "players" that have to get involved to see what is at fault.

    So, if one associates "reliable" with Direct Connect, then definitely it is going down and will continue to go down over time as more and more financial institutions drop it.

    And if one considers bill pay through Quicken as an essential feature then the outlook is even worse. Note that Quicken Bill Pay is the equivalent of Express Web Connect for bill payer sites. No standards, hacking websites. And problems in the Quicken (the program) code on top of that mess.

    My best suggestion for paying bills is what I have been doing for over 25 years and some SuperUsers have suggested too, go to the biller's website and setup an automatic payment from there.

    Signature:
    This is my website: http://www.quicknperlwiz.com/
  • Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭✭✭

    Thanks for the explaination….shortly after EWC+ was released I recall at least 2 maybe 3 times when EWC+ was broken. It took days to fix it and as you have outlined, now when Q failes to connect…their are several players involved in the connection any of which could be the cause of the failure…thus longer to fix connection issues.

    To me there is little benefit to EWC+ and no doublt over time Q Subscribers are going to drop.

    I am somewhat of a control Freak…sure there are many others…and setting up auto Debit Bill pay from Providers site takes away when the Bill is paid (guess you coul designate a date) and how Much (should you not be paying the 100% every Bill due date (I do pay 100%). So for me it is all about being in control…complete control.

  • Member ✭✭✭✭
    denmarfl

    I agree about the control aspect. Having worked in IT since the 1970's, I don't trust that everyone's direct debit will stop when the account is terminated or will always debit the correct amount. But they're leaving us with ever fewer options!

  • Quicken Windows Subscription Member

    thank you so much. I am not sure what it all means, but the list is super useful.

  • Quicken Windows Subscription SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November 2023

    Generically speaking, there is no such thing as "an EWC+ problem". When there have been long term problems with EWC+ for the most part they have been related to specific financial institutions and in many of those cases those same financial institutions have had recurring issues with EWC+. That tells me they have some system management/protocol issues relative to Quicken.

    But from my perspective it is that some banks have struggled with EWC+ while other have had few issues with EWC+. I personally have EWC+ accounts set up with US Bank, PNC, PayPal, Chase and Cap One and all have been working pretty reliably with far fewer connection issues than I had before when EWC was set up with them. (Earlier I'd posted that I did not have much experience with PNC and EWC+ but I'd forgotten that I do have both checking and savings accounts set up with EWC+ in a test file and can confirm that EWC+ has been working really well with PNC.)

    Regarding PNC and DC: @jschaffe - I have been a PNC consumer customer for over 2 years. PNC is my primary bank. I have a Virtual Wallet account and a savings account. I can assure you that PNC does support DC with Bank Bill Pay for consumer accounts and does not charge any fees for that. To set up DC with PNC you will first need to contact PNC and request them to provide you with unique login information. For some the USERID will be their SSN and for others it will be a unique USERID that they will mail to you. Then they will also send you a unique PW in a separate mailing. Once you receive both the USERID and PW information you do Add Account and select PNC Bank - Direct Connect to start the online services setup process.

    Business accounts are charged a monthly fee of $2.00 for DC which is pretty small considering Bank Bill Pay has no other costs associated with it.

    Regarding Wells Fargo: @denmarfl - You stated that…

    Wells Fargo is in the process of terminating DC and switching to EWC+.

    That is not correct. Here is the announcement regarding WF's upcoming transition to EWC+: https://www.quicken.com/support/why-am-i-receiving-message-about-my-wells-fargo-accounts. It very clearly states that EWC will make this transition. It does not say that DC will be making this transition.

    Here is also a post by a Moderator stating that WF will not be transitioning DC to EWC+:

    It has long been assumed by many (including many Super Users, myself included) that when a bank transitions to EWC+ both DC and EWC (and in some cases WC) will be replaced by EWC+. That assumption was proven incorrect when both US Bank and PNC (and I think one other) retained DC with Bank Bill Pay after they'd transitioned EWC to EWC+. And now the Moderator has confirmed that WF will not replace DC with EWC+.

    I have been using WF DC with Bank Bill Pay since they made DC free (in 2019 or 2020) and it has worked quite well for me. I think the main thing I don't like about DC Bill Pay with them is that they do not download the check number for the bill payment at the time the payment is scheduled. Instead it will download once the payment has posted.

    I prefer PNC's DC Bank Bill Pay because the check number is downloaded into the register when the bill payment is first set up. I like that.

    Quicken Classic Premier (US) Subscription: R62.16 on Windows 11 Home

  • Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭✭✭

    OK…my Info regarding Wells Fargo had notified Quicken that they will be terminating DC and replace it with EWC+ came right from an agent in the Quicken Office of the President. So one of us has the wrong information….. Further, Eric Dunn in this letter to customers shortly after EWC+ was released wrote, eventually all banks will be converting from DC to the Much improved, move secure EWC+ Connection (or similar words to that effect).

  • Quicken Windows Subscription SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20396508#Comment_20396508

    I think it is safe to say that there has been a lot of miscommunications and misunderstandings occurring regarding EWC+ coming from a wide range of directions.

    One that has become readily apparent to me is that the "much improved, faster, more secure" is really a reference comparing it to EWC, not to DC. I think everyone knows painfully well by now that DC connections are far superior to EWC+ in many ways (much faster, more reliable, more functional 2-way communications to support DC Bank Bill Pay and internal account transfers and, in at least some ways, more secure).

    Another incorrect assumption is that the pace of transitions would be relatively fast. However, it has been anything but that. Eric stated in his 9/21/22 email that there would be 5-10 more large FIs to transition to EWC+ by the end of 2023. I think there were only 4 or 5 that had cut in EWC+ at that time so that would bring the total up to 9-15 by now. If including this pending WF transition, the actual number through 2023 is 10 (maybe 11?)…and that is over 2 full years. I'm guessing the pace will increase over time but I think it is safe to say that even if every FI does eventually transition to EWC+ it will take years to complete that since there are over 14K FIs that support Quicken.

    And I wonder how many of the FIs (especially the smaller and medium sized FIs) will actually make the switch to EWC+ or how many will resist it because it will cost them to make the change (they must make an I/T investment).

    Will most DC FIs eliminate DC? Maybe over time because they need to pay a license fee to Intuit for DC but that is not the case with EWC and EWC+ so it could be a cost reduction measure for them. It also costs the FIs to maintain/service the different connection methods so the more connection methods they support the more expensive it is for them. As the FIs' contracts for DC expire I think we'll see the number of FIs migrating to EWC+ to grow. But will all FIs drop DC for EWC+? I don't think anyone really knows that for sure, perhaps not even Eric or Intuit. There are a lot of cost and resource demands on the FIs to make this switch and they each need to make their own business case regarding it. And for some FIs, it might not make financial sense to drop DC for EWC+ because DC support is a revenue stream for them.

    And now we have 3 FIs (out of the 10-11 that have cut in EWC+) that have retained or will retain DC even after they cut in EWC+. So, what is that telling us?

    The bottom line is that I think not even Quicken and Intuit know whether or not all FIs will cut in EWC+, whether or not all DC will go away and when all those transitions will occur. I've decided I'm going to take a wait and see approach and stop trying to 2nd guess the plan and process. If and when EWC+ is cut in I will just roll with the punches because there is nothing I can do to change it and it's been pretty apparent that when assumptions have been made regarding it those assumptions have not been entirely accurate.

    Quicken Classic Premier (US) Subscription: R62.16 on Windows 11 Home

This discussion has been closed.

Welcome!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.
Sign In
Register

Quick Links

Categories