Citibank Direct Access now supports OFX!!!

[Andrew DeFaria]

"David W. Vaughan" wrote:

Like others, I was concerned to receive a letter from Citi recently advising that the Bank will begin passing on Qkn's $9.95/m fee from September 1 this year.

Then I noticed something interesting: DA (at least via the web) now supports OFX (for financial data from 1998 onwards - that's what that strange "Active Statement Money 98/99 is trying to tell us - and not very clearly IMHO) -
even if the DA User Guide section on downloading A/c Info (at: http://home.da-us.citibank.com/da/guide/downlda.htm ) has not yet been updated to reflect this (so I just called the DA folks now to tell them about this).

Now if I understand the OFX standard correctly (after reading the info at http://www.ofx.net) it seems that we will be able to get similar integrated online banking/automatching on importing into Qkn the downloaded account info via OFX via DA that we now get via downloading Citi account info via Qkn?

Is that correct? (My current ver of Qkn (6.0c) doesn't support OFX so I haven't been able to check this yet.)

One could hope. Perhaps out Canadian friends could chime in and describe their experiences. From what I understand online banking using OFX is the main (only?) way to do online banking in Canada. Of course, somebody who has had experience with both, Quicken Integrated Online Banking and Quicken's OFX based Online Banking, would be in the best position to comment and contrast the two.

However, what about going the other way? I mean online banking transaction download is one thing. But the ability to do online bill payments simply by clicking the Online Payment toggle in the Write Checks screen or selecting Online in a scheduled transaction or doing Online Repeating Payments is still quite convenient and useful. Not to mention online transfers. Does OFX and it's integration into Quicken provide for that?

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[David W. Vaughan]

Hi folks!

Like others, I was concerned to receive a letter from Citi recently advising
that the Bank will begin passing on Qkn's $9.95/m fee from September 1 this
year.

Then I noticed something interesting: DA (at least via the web) now supports
OFX (for financial data from 1998 onwards - that's what that strange "Active
Statement Money 98/99 is trying to tell us - and not very clearly IMHO) -
even if the DA User Guide section on downloading A/c Info (at:
http://home.da-us.citibank.com/da/guide/downlda.htm ) has not yet been
updated to reflect this (so I just called the DA folks now to tell them
about this).

Now if I understand the OFX standard correctly (after reading the info at
http://www.ofx.net) it seems that we will be able to get similar integrated
online banking/automatching on importing into Qkn the downloaded account
info via OFX via DA that we now get via downloading Citi account info via
Qkn?

Is that correct? (My current ver of Qkn (6.0c) doesn't support OFX so I
haven't been able to check this yet.)

/dwv

[Don Macpherson]

Andrew,
Both Amex and Crestar Bank are currently using OFX (that I use). Both
are located in the US. Both work fine (when they are not having server
troubles, Amex is much more trouble). Neither of them require that you have
an online session that creates an .ofx file, they download directly into
Quicken in the same manner as the old proprietary interface. In effect, the
transition to OFX required no operational changes from my perspective - I
keep using One Step Update and its done!

Don Macpherson

[David W. Vaughan]

Hi Andrew and thks for your reply!

 

> Of course, somebody who has had experience with both, Quicken Integrated Online Banking and Quicken's OFX based

> Online Banking, would be in the best position to comment and contrast the two.

Yes, so I hope someone with experience of both jumps in here!

> However, what about going the other way? I mean online banking transaction download is one thing. But the ability to do

> online bill payments simply by clicking the Online Payment toggle in the Write Checks screen or selecting Online in a

> scheduled transaction or doing Online Repeating Payments is still quite convenient and useful. Not to mention online transfers.

> Does OFX and it's integration into Quicken provide for that?

Good question!

 

I've been quite happy with Citibank's free online bill payment thru Direct Access (software is nicely laid out and quite fast, thru its web site access, at least), and I actually chose to use it instead of Quicken's bill payment thru Checkfree.

 

I remember reading in the newsgroups about the occasional but horrendous problems with Checkfree, whereas Citi's DA service and Customer Support are good (eg., once, when a Citi check went astray, they paid the merchant's late fee because the prob was Citi's responsibility). And Citi's service is free whereas Quicken's service  was (is?) not free, so using Citi's service has been the best choice for me. But a friend recently mentioned that he gets Quicken's bill pay service free because he upgrades evey year. (What is that about?) And one thing I don't like about Citi's bill pay service is that you don't get the float - as happens with Quicken's bill-pay service.)

 

All the best! /dwv

[David W. Vaughan]

Hi Don!

> Neither of them require that you have
> an online session that creates an .ofx file, they download directly into
> Quicken in the same manner as the old proprietary interface. In effect,
the
> transition to OFX required no operational changes from my perspective - I
> keep using One Step Update and its done!

That's interesting - and convenient. It looks like Citi will require a
download session with Citi's software and then 'import' of the resulting OFX
file into Qkn. The $64 question is now intelligent this OFX import procedure
will be eg., hopefully, it will support transaction matching (unlike the
import process for QIF files).

Here's hoping! /d

[David W. Vaughan]

Hi Han!

 

> but the possibility exists that this only works for Money99 (it says download OFX to Money99).

I think what your referring to is the entry in Direct Access' "Account Info/Download Account Activity" screen, in the (Data) Format Drop Down Dialog box, titled "OFX - Active Statement Money 98/99". I called Customer Service about this and was told that this means that only 98 and 99 'active money' accounts can be downloaded in OFX format - and that 'Money' here does NOT refer to MS Money. Clearly, a confusing name for this data format.

 

> How is OFX supposed to work?

Good question. That http://www.ofx.net trade group site I referred to earlier has some general info - but it is not clear to me whether ALL fin institutions support the SAME features in their implementations of OFX or whether (as I suspect) each bank can decide what features of the OFX spec it wants to support.

 

HTH! /d

[Andrew DeFaria]

"David W. Vaughan" wrote:

However, what about going the other way? I mean online banking transaction download is one thing. But the ability to do online bill payments simply by clicking the Online Payment toggle in the Write Checks screen or selecting Online in a scheduled transaction or doing Online Repeating Payments is still quite convenient and useful. Not to mention online transfers.  Does OFX and it's integration into Quicken provide for that?

 Good question!

I've been quite happy with Citibank's free online bill payment thru Direct Access (software is nicely laid out and quite fast, thru its web site access, at least), and I actually chose to use it instead of Quicken's bill payment thru Checkfree.

Another advantage is that if I choose to have another checking account (actually I have two already, both with Union Bank but it could have been another bank) the interface, usage and all the advantages of integrated online banking with Quicken remain identical. If I were using another bank I bet the functionality and UI would be different for each bank's propriatary web page.

I remember reading in the newsgroups about the occasional but horrendous problems with Checkfree, whereas Citi's DA service and Customer Support are good (eg., once, when a Citi check went astray, they paid the merchant's late fee because the prob was Citi's responsibility).

I've used Union Bank and Checkfree to pay all of my bills for 5 years now. Very little problems. I don't remember a late payment where a fee was in question (perhaps once or twice and if so I'm sure that Union Bank paid it).

And Citi's service is free whereas Quicken's service  was (is?) not free, so using Citi's service has been the best choice for me.

You get what you pay for they say. I believe the additional benefits that I get with integrated online banking is worth the piddly $4.95/month. Hell I spend more than that on lunch each day!

[Joe Computer Dude]

I received notice from AMEX today that they will begin using OFX later this
year and that it will require Quicken 99....so they're offering a free copy
to all cardholders. So, it would seem that OFX isn't online at AMEX yet,
what say ye Don.

Humm....$75 per year for Amex....20 years.....now I get something
"free"....1+1= ?

Don Macpherson <nearly_donmac@almost_erols.com> wrote in message
news:7nf9io$ktc$1...@autumn.news.rcn.net...

> Andrew,
> Both Amex and Crestar Bank are currently using OFX (that I use). Both
> are located in the US. Both work fine (when they are not having server

> troubles, Amex is much more trouble). Neither of them require that you

have
> an online session that creates an .ofx file, they download directly into
> Quicken in the same manner as the old proprietary interface. In effect,
the
> transition to OFX required no operational changes from my perspective - I
> keep using One Step Update and its done!
>

> Don Macpherson
>
>

[Bill Pierson]

I think Amex is currently using OFX. Im not as familar with the OFX specs as I
am with the NPC specs, (Hey! I never supported OFX) but it does appear that my
info from AMEX is located in the OFXlog.txt and is no longer in the NPClog.txt.
Anybody else have the same results??
Bill Pierson

[Don Macpherson]

Joe Computer Dude <J...@Computerdude.com> wrote in message
news:rpspul$0$37nspbi$7...@news.supernews.com...

> I received notice from AMEX today that they will begin using OFX later
this
> year and that it will require Quicken 99....so they're offering a free
copy
> to all cardholders. So, it would seem that OFX isn't online at AMEX yet,
> what say ye Don.

Rolling upgrade of users.

Don Macpherson

[Bill Rubin]

My experience has been that when I have bill payment problems for
payments issued thru my Citibank account, via Checkfree, it is Citibank
who I am dealing with when messaging them for assistance. And in my
opinion, their customer service hasn't been all that great. They do
manage to get most of the late fees waived, in one case my water bill
arrived late and they could not get the late fee waived because it would
have required an act of my local town board, so Citibank refunded the
late fee (all of $4, I think).

On the other hand, when my mortgage payment arrived late, they refused
to handle it for me because I had scheduled it to arrive on the 15th and
they said I had to schedule it for the 1st if I expected them to
intercede in my behalf because it was late otherwise (even though there
was no late fee until after the 16th).

Bill

Bill

"David W. Vaughan" wrote:

> I remember reading in the newsgroups about the occasional but
> horrendous problems with Checkfree, whereas Citi's DA service and
> Customer Support are good (eg., once, when a Citi check went astray,
> they paid the merchant's late fee because the prob was Citi's

> responsibility). And Citi's service is free whereas Quicken's service

> was (is?) not free, so using Citi's service has been the best choice