[moneydance] how to diagnose OFX problems?

[dancingbrook]

Fuzzy,
I'm not sure where you get your information, but to dispel  
misinformation:

First, here are some open sources of much OFX access data
http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/OFX_Direct_Connect_Bank_Settings
http://ofxblog.wordpress.com/fi-data/

Though not complete, they certainly provide a lot of useful data.

And here is the history OFX (from www.ofx.net):

Open Financial Exchange is a unified specification for the electronic  
exchange of financial data between financial institutions, businesses  
and consumers via the Internet. Created by CheckFree, Intuit and  
Microsoft in early 1997, Open Financial Exchange supports a wide range  
of financial activities including consumer and small business banking  
(also with image download and loan and amortization download),  
consumer and small business bill payment, bill presentment and  
investments, including stocks, bonds and mutual funds, and tax  
download. Other financial services, including financial planning and  
insurance, may be added in the future. Open Financial Exchange, which  
supports transactional Web sites, thin clients and personal financial  
management software, streamlines the process financial institutions  
need to connect to multiple customer interfaces, processors and  
systems integrators.

QFX is Quicken's proprietary version of the OFX file format.




On Oct 25, 2008, at 6:31 PM, Fuzzy Fox wrote:

> dancingbrook <dancingbrook at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I just realized how much of a barrier this automatic OFX issues is to
>> MD, particularly because it is/was so easy to set up and get initial
>> acct info in Mint and Quicken (no I don't work for either).
>
> It's important to realize that this whole OFX infrastructure was
> actually built by Quicken, at considerable time, effort, and expense.
> Before Quicken, banks had no way for users to download transactions,  
> and
> did not even think customers would be interested in such a thing.  The
> idea of putting customer out onto the Internet where perhaps anyone
> could grab it, was considered ridiculous by the security-conscious
> banks.
>
> Quicken basically had to lobby them and wear them down from this
> position, demonstrate that such data could be obtained securely, and
> probably write half of the software that they used for this purpose.
> All for the purpose of making more sales in Quicken, by creating more
> value for consumers by easing their financial management.  Because  
> most
> users hated typing in data all the time, so it was considered a  
> barrier
> to entry.
>
> Since Quicken built the system, and mostly set it up to work using  
> each
> individual bank's services and servers, they kept the information  
> about
> how to connect to these banks, to themselves.  This makes some sense,
> since they were the ones who basically caused the system to be built,
> why should they share that information and allow others to profit from
> their hard work?  As a result, the information about how to connect to
> each bank and what protocols to use with them, is not a matter of  
> public
> information.  It is more a matter of detective work, and must be  
> largely
> repeated for each financial institution.
>
> So the result is that, if you're not using Quicken (and probably MS
> Money as well, since MS is probably paying money to Quicken for the  
> use
> of their proprietary connection data), then you are basically a victim
> of the detective work and guesswork required for third parties to  
> try to
> edge their way into this closed financial network.
>
>> Getting in the customer in the door and feeling comfortable is
>> critical.
>
> Well, that is certainly true, but the cost of making this easy would
> increase the price of Moneydance substantially.  Is that what you  
> want?
>
>> Is there not a public database somewhere where all this bank specific
>> OFX data is stored?  Certainly ought to be, an it could be kept up- 
>> to-
>> date there as well.
>
> There has probably been a movement to attempt to track this data in a
> public repository somewhere, but the data is probably fraught with
> errors and ommissions, which is the nature of such projects.  There is
> no authority interested in making sure the information is factual and
> complete, except for the community attempting to use that data.
>
> -- 
> Fuzzy Fox <fox at foxtaur.com>
>  "Why a man would want a wife is a big mystery to some people.
>   Why a man would want two wives is a bigamystery."
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