Online banking in the US

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1

Does the latest development build have the capability for online banking in the US?

3

It’s not really clear exactly what you are asking. Nothing related to online banking has been removed from the program. The problem in the US (I don’t know about elsewhere) is that little by little, financial institutions are removing the ability to do OFX direct connect. For example, Bank of America dropped it a year or more ago, but Merrill Lynch still supports it. However, in most cases, you can still go to the institution’s web site, log in, and export an OFX file (often labelled as Web Connect.) If you set up your browser to open that file type with KMyMoney, then it will work fine. Even worse, some institutions seem to not deal with OFX at all, in which case you are reduced to using a CSV (comma separated values) file, which can work, depending, as is so often the case, on the details of the file the bank produces.

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4

I understand that I can go to my bank and export an OFX file then import that file. I wanted to know if KMyMoney could directly connect to the bank. I’ve seen references to the plugin Kbanking but I don’t see it in my plugin list. I also see “Map account” in Institutions section and when I click on that it opens a window for Online Banking Account Setup.

5

KBanking does not work with any US banks that I know of. This is not a problem or something missing in KMM, it is just a system not used by US financial institutions. As to why it is not on your plugin list, we would need to know the exact version you are running and where you got it. I had thought it was included by all the major Linux distributions and our Windows builds.
There are still three ways to download OFX data.

  1. go to a website, download an OFX file, and do File/Import in KMM.
  2. go to a website, download an OFX file, and have KMM automatically import that file. That is called Web Connect, and requires configuring your browser to open that type of file with KMyMoney.
  3. the most automated system is what is called OFX Direct Connect, and now that I just tried it again, I see the problem. Map Account is indeed how you would set this up. The first pop-up is to choose bewteen the kbanking and ofximporter back ends. In the US, choose the latter. What is then supposed to happen is KMM fetches a list of banks known to support this service and let you choose your bank. Unfortunately, it seems the web site from which we used to download that information is gone. That is evident from the lack of entries on the Automatic tab of the next dialog window. It is still possible to configure, using the Manual tab, but getting the right information for filling in that form can be difficult.

First - please confirm that you do at least get to that dialog. Next - if you tell us what bank you are trying to connect to, hopefully someone who also uses that bank can tell us if OFX Direct Connect still works, and if so, what entries to use on that form.

If you correctly submit that form (using the Next button) you should be prompted for the name and password, which are the ones you use to log on to the bank’s web site. The last field on that page (UID) is not generally used, so I’ll skip the discussion for now.

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That is not entirely true. KBanking also supports OFX under the hood and is not limited to the Germany only HBCI/FinTS protocols. In fact, GnuCash totally relies on AqBanking for online account access. Regarding the names: KBanking is KMyMoney’s wrapper around AqBanking.

Regarding OFX connection information: our friends over at GnuCash have this collection (last updated in 2022, though).

Meanwhile, I stepped on a page from SEE Finance which lists a plathora of institutions apparently supporting OFX (but no connection details). Maybe, it is of help anyway.

Yes, it finally got closed down. We should remove the code that collects the data from them.

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I do see my banks listed on the SEE Finance page. However, as you mention, no connection details. The GnuCash OFX table is also out-of-date.

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I may have found a source for the OFX direct connect bank details: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/help-article/bank-feeds/update-financial-institutions-directory-quickbooks/L9CuK0RjS_US_en_US

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Can anyone determine if the information in the files at this site provides the parameters that enable OFX direct connect?

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There are four lines for FirstIB in the file “QuickBooks version to get the latest file: 2024”. I used the first number as the FID and the URL as what was there in the line. Going to Next, I entered my username and password. Then this message appeared: “Access to restricted port in POST denied.”

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See Trying to connect to my bank account • KDE Community Forums for what seems to be a similar issue. There are several comments there regarding additional information you could post here which might help someone figure out the problem.

Quick questions I can think of

  • did you try all the various URLs on those four lines?
  • did you try all four FIDs?
  • have you turned on logging and looked in the log for any additional error details?

If anyone else reading this uses the same bank, please share your ofx settings for the bank.

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Well, those URLs won’t do you any good. The first (https://www.firstib.com/) is simply their main website. Looking around, it has a LOGIN button and that shows the following code:

<form autocomplete="off" name="Login" method="post" action="https://www.myfirstib.com/tob/live/usp-core/app/initialLogin">

Guess what: that is the second URL in the list (https://www.myfirstib.com/tob/live/usp-core/app/login/consumer).

That does not look like it would work for OFX Direct Connect :frowning: Maybe, you get in touch with them and ask if they support OFX Direct Connect and if yes, what the URL, FID and other necessary parameters are. If they talk about Quicken, tell them that this is not the answer you are looking for :slight_smile: