Best Canadian Bank and Broker for Downloading Transactions
Does anyone have an opinion on which is the best Canadian bank and investment broker for downloading transactions?
Has anyone successfully used an Investment Broker that downloads transactions? I notice that TD Waterhouse is listed in the possible.
I am currently with HSBC and have had to manually download transaction files. They are being bought by RBC so I either go with RBC or look now for a different bank.
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I have used Quicken for more than three decades and have downloaded transactions from RBC for most of that period. RBC presently works well for downloading banking and credit account transactions. Some people have had an issue with multi factor authentication with RBC, but I have been able to switch MFA off on the RBC online banking website, thereby dodging that problem - others have reported that they can't switch MFA off. I don't know why RBC would provide me the option to switch off MFA, but not allow others to do the same. It is possible that RBC and Quicken have sorted out that MFA problem since I last had MFA switched on for RBC.
Generally speaking, support for downloading bank and credit account transaction is decent with the Big Four banks. There is presently an issue with BMO - that is also a multi factor authentication issue, but with no workaround. We've reported the issue to Quicken, but they don't seem to be in any hurry to get it fixed.
There is very limited support for downloading investment transactions. Even with the few institutions that support it, it is via Web Connect and only downloads limited data. I do use Quicken for investments, but I enter everything manually. In Canada, that seems to be the only viable option.
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I posted this in response to another question but it is more relevant here:
"I've been using Quicken with CIBC for AT LEAST 10 years and it works perfectly, even occasionally asking for a 2FA code when required by my bank."
However, as Arctic Hare comments investment transactions from CIBC Investor's Edge are not supported. I solved this problem by exporting my monthly transactions from the broker into a CSV file, doing a minor reformat with some Excel macros, and then using a 3rd party tool to convert to a QIF file for a simple import into Quicken. It sounds like more work than it really is. The whole thing takes literally less than 30s.
On the other hand I have an MBNA Amazon credit card that is supposed to be supported but I have never been able to get it to download my monthly data, and neither has anyone else in this forum. The manual QFX import does work though so it's not a big hardship.
Just my $0.026 (CAD) worth ……. :-)
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I have been using both BNS and CIBC since 1995 and have not had problems with either. That said — and to be clear — I use Web Connect as opposed to Express Web Connect (EWC) and all works seamlessly.
I had to move away from EWC because I have 3 banking cards at CIBC (one personal, one for company 1 and one for company 2) and EWC does not do well with multiple bank cards from the same FI.
I tried and could not find one of teh Big 5 banks that would 1 bank card instead of the 3! It sucks!
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I disagree with the assertion "EWC does not do well with multiple bank cards from the same FI." I use multiple banking cards for RBC in one Quicken file and it does not present any issue. You need to be careful how you set things up if the cards share joint accounts, but that is the only limitation I've encountered.
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@Arctic Hare I am happy for you that you have had no problem. I wish I could say the same but my experience is different. I will add that I was extremely careful about the setup — for the very reason you note — but ran into problem three times (i.e., after three setup attempts) so decided to abandon it.
Perhaps my problems are bank specific; I had this problem with CIBC while you are at RBC.
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@JoelC Were the problems you had in the setup, or the downloading of the transactions?
In general, difficulty getting things setup, or the reliability depends mostly on the financial institution.
In the setup world it isn't that uncommon for people to have problems setting up a business account when the personal ones work just fine.
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@Chris_QPW I was very careful in setting things up and had the following happen to me 3 times:
i) Set up my personal banking card for my personal accounts
ii) Set up Company 1 banking card for my Company 1 accounts
iii) Set up Company 2 banking card for my Company 2 accounts
iv) Initial OSU showed all 3 banking cards and everything was find. OSU then went from 3 banking cards → 2 bankings cards → 1 banking card over a matter for 5 to 7 days. I gave up and went from EWC → WC. It is extra work but it works!
And to @Arctic Hare 's point Company 1 and Company 2 banking cards also have access to my personal checking account to facilitate fudn trabsfers but I was extremely careful to make sure that my personal account was only setup / linked through my personal banking card.
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I'm going to speculate that the problems you ran into with multiple cards were coincidental with multiple cards; i.e. there was some cause other than multiple accounts with the one FI. I think it is unlikely that, if there were such an issue, it would be FI specific. Over the years, I've set up my multiple account with one FI configuration many times. I've had many issues (including the current mess with BMO) with EWC, but multiple accounts/cards has never been a problem.
Web Connect is more reliable and more secure - without a doubt… it just takes quite a bit more touch time time to execute.
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