US Banks That Offer Transaction History?

wirelessdreamer writes "I use a bank in the US that will only allow me to download transaction history in CSV for the previous three months. I have a hard time remembering to pull my transaction history down every three months, and would gladly jump ship to another bank if there is one that lets me download, say three years' worth of transaction history as one of the standard services. Then I can import my data into MySQL and run some reports on it, which is all I'm looking for." What banks out there do the best job at providing users with simple, downloadable data?

Comments

You might have to pay to get the records

[failedlogic]

I think the rule of thumb is most banks offer a few months' worth of records. My Canadian bank offers 3 months worth of records on line as well. I don't know what the practice is with other banks. But mine offers further records if I go to the branch and pay for the records. You may find that you will also need to pay for transaction records. These records may or may not be available on-line and you may only be able to get them at a branch.

Now, if you have enough money in your account (you're of sufficient high net worth) they may be able to give you better service. Then again, you wouldn't be posting the question on /. you'd already have a banking officer doing it for you!

That's the wrong question

[A nonymous Coward]

The right question is, "What can I do to remember to download it every month?"

What if you find a bank that has a current policy of letting you download 5 years' of history, you forget for 4 years, and they change policy to three months?

Or what if you do nothing for four years, decide to switch banks for some other equally trivial reason, forget to download even then, and then a year later need it?

You need some idiotic little reminder, a cron job if nothing else, to do it once a month. That's the real solution.

Or maybe you need to decide the data isn't really very important after all, if you can't oblige yourself by downloading once a month and don't actually use it.

Re:That's the wrong question

[clarkkent09]

That information is about you but you have no right to have someone else store it for you indefinitely. Download it periodically and store it yourself if it's so important to you. By the way, as far as I know all banks will provide you with sufficient account history information for every normal purpose, such as when buying a house etc.

happy to provide history to the Feds

[Phantom Gremlin]

All US banks are very happy to offer many years worth of transaction history to any Federal agency that desires this information. Too bad they won't do the same for their putative "customers".

Uh, root cause?

[geekmux]

So, let me get this straight. You would consider changing banks, and going through all the pain associated with changing direct deposits, ordering new checks or a debit card, going online to change any websites you had your bills tied to your old account, all because you can't seem to manage to put a reminder in one of your 17 electronic devices to remind you to do something once every three months?

Seriously?

Re:Bank of America

[camperdave]

But yes, if the bank is insecure enough that you can have a script log in for you with no human actions, its insecure enough that its vulnerable to phishing attempts.

Um... not at all. Phishing is not an attempt to crack the bank's security. Phishing is an attempt to lure the user into divulging the credentials by imitating the bank. First of all, a script will have the bank's true URL hard coded into it, so it can never be distracted by fakes. Second, a script initiates the conversation whereas a phishing attack is initiated by the phisher, so the script will never even see a phishing attempt. Third, a script will verify that it has a secure connection each and every time, whereas a person won't.

All in all, using a script will be more secure than logging in manually.