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

Bank of America

[Eleed]

offers what seems to be unlimited download of transaction history. I pulled 2 years worth a few months ago.

Re:Bank of America

[Tinik]

Yea, but then you have to deal with Bank of America, who charges a fee if you even think about your accounts.

Re:Bank of America

[dziban303]

I think submitter should discover something called a "calendar" and write "download bank data" every three months.

He could even use an electronic, automated, free calendar like the one Google offers, and have reminders sent to his email/phone.

Re:Bank of America

[m1xram]

If they were really fancy they could write a script that runs automatically every week or month and then discard the duplicated data. The tricky part is authentication with the bank.

Re:Bank of America

[bkaul01]

From the text at the bottom of my listing of available statements on BoA's website:

Related Links
Order a paper statement up to the past 7 years
(Your past 18 month's statements are available to you now online.)

Re:Bank of America

[jonwil]

Depends on how the bank does authentication.
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.

Re:Bank of America

[Albanach]

Having had multiple accounts with them for over five years, I don't recall being charged a fee once.

Either you heard wrong, or are doing something wrong.

Re:Bank of America

[freedom_india]

You should have had a DDA. I too had a DDA, and i never got charged for most things.

Re:Bank of America

[Anonymous Coward]

Bank of America will require a thumbprint from your mom if you write her a check from your own BoA account and she walks in to cash it. Screw Bank of America. Hard. And any other bank that uses the "Thumbprint Signature Program" to try to avoid cashing checks.

Re:Bank of America

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to agree with you. While I don't think Bank of America is the best bank by any means, the claims about their fees are greatly exagerated. I've had an account with them for 5 years, and haven't had any unreasonable fees. There's been a few days where I'm there for an hour or two taking up one of their rep's time. This isn't due to their incompetence, I just have a lot of banking that needs done every once in a while. I've never been charged a teller fee or anything like that. The only thing I consistently get a fee for is wire transfers, which actually eats up a lot of employee time to process and is totally reasonable. The people complaining about fees are probably just irresponsible and overdraft a lot.

Re:Bank of America

[elmarkitse]

Keybank goes back 18 months, has multiple formats, and allows you to create and store labels that you can assign to an item (Income - type 1, Expense - type 2, Meals and Entertainment, etc) on the fly when it happens so 3 - 18 months later when you come back to the transactions, you don't have to wonder which of those transactions were write offs.

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.

Re:Bank of America

[jonwil]

What I meant was that the technology used to help prevent phishing and viruses (including one-time-use login numbers, SecurID keyfobs, on-screen keyboards, "click the correct picture" etc) would also make it harder to write a script to log into your bank automatically.

Re:Bank of America

[Phleg]

My bank refunds any and all ATM fees, no limits and no questions asked. My bank sends me checks, without me even needing to ask, for free. My bank actually pays competitive interest on checking and savings accounts.

Your bank charges an extra ATM fee for using out-of-network ATMs. Your bank charges for checks, even for the first batch. Your bank has some of the shittiest interest rates in the Western world.

Best I can tell, you're the one doing it wrong.

Re:Bank of America

[InsaneProcessor]

Who writes checks anymore (I think we write 1 or two a month at most and have bought from a private printer for 25 years)? Who needs to use an out-of-network ATM (there has always been a B of A ATM within a mile of where I am and every store in the U.S. takes my ATM card)? Who would even consider using a bank for collecting interest (there hasn't been a decent interest rate anywhere that compares to private credit unions)?

I have been with B of A for 15 years and never paid a fee or bought checks from them. The online bill pay is priceless and works perfectly every time. When I made an error, they helped me fix it, and put the money back instantly. I have two college kids on their own accounts and they are free too. The bank has helped them several times when they were still minors and made mistakes.

Business accounts may be a different matter but personal account are free and so easy.

Re:Bank of America

[VolciMaster]

Who writes checks anymore (I think we write 1 or two a month at most and have bought from a private printer for 25 years)? Who needs to use an out-of-network ATM (there has always been a B of A ATM within a mile of where I am and every store in the U.S. takes my ATM card)? Who would even consider using a bank for collecting interest (there hasn't been a decent interest rate anywhere that compares to private credit unions)? I have been with B of A for 15 years and never paid a fee or bought checks from them. The online bill pay is priceless and works perfectly every time. When I made an error, they helped me fix it, and put the money back instantly. I have two college kids on their own accounts and they are free too. The bank has helped them several times when they were still minors and made mistakes. Business accounts may be a different matter but personal account are free and so easy.

Who writes more than one or two checks a month? Well, my family does: rent, utilities (both required to be checks), donations to our church and other organizations (easily trackable for tax purposes if needed), small organization events (fund raising dinners, etc), and others come to mind. On average, we're in the neighborhood of 4 a month, some months as high as 15.

Re:Bank of America

[Phleg]

Everyone has a day and time when they have to write a check for something. You have to pay for yours, I don't. End of story.

You don't need to use an out-of-network ATM, but you completely ignore the fact that I can use any ATM I want, for any bank, in any country, and you have to use only yours. My bank's ATMs are effectively an insanely large superset of yours. Again, end of story.

Lastly, having some amount of easily-accessible cash on-hand for an emergency is never a bad thing. Mine gains interest. Yours either doesn't exist, doesn't gain interest, or isn't nearly as quickly accessible in an emergency. Once more, end of story.

Just because BoA hasn't screwed you over yet doesn't mean they aren't going to some day. Just because you aren't unhappy with the amenities BoA provides you likewise doesn't mean it's still not even better somewhere else. Personally, I prefer being with a bank that's not actively looking for ways to screw me over. To each his own.

DCU

[susehat]

Digital Federal Credit Union seems to let one pull for as long as they have been a member. And they have multiple formats!

Re:DCU

[bastion_xx]

Good thing about a credit union that services techies (the old DEC crowd). It's funny to see HP kit in the offices, I'd still love to see VT300-VT400's from days past. Now DFCU, 'splain to me again why you closed down the Alpharetta branch??!!! Personally, I use mint.com to manage historical transactions.

Re:DCU

[Runaway1956]

I note your use of the words "seems to". I looked at my bank, and it also "seems to" permit me to examine ancient transactions. I used the calendars to select Sept 2007 through Sept 2010 - but when I downloaded, I only had the last six months of data. Also, First National has several format - 2 Quicken formats,2 Microsoft formats, CSV - and a couple more. You might want to look at DFCU again, to see if you can actually retrieve all the data that it "seems to" make available. http://www.fnbhotsprings.com/

Re:DCU

[palegray.net]

Now DFCU, 'splain to me again why you closed down the Alpharetta branch??!!!

Heh, you reminded me of the fact that Navy Federal Credit Union finally opened a shiny new branch at Crabapple awhile back... shortly after I moved to New Jersey. Awesome timing!

Re:DCU

[Shayde]

Seconded and thirded. I use DCU as well - and even though the interface looks like it's from 1996, it does let me pay bills online, have my history going back years, and syncs up with Mint.com and other sites.

Re:DCU

[wolfnix]

I agree. Digital Federal is awesome. they have the most features I have seen for a CU, just well rounded.

Re:DCU

[AaronW]

I use Keypoint Credit Union and have no problem viewing transactions going back years. (Formerly AEA - American Electronics Association credit union).

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!

Re:You might have to pay to get the records

[mysidia]

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.

You wouldn't need to ask your bank for records, your personal accountant would already have collected all that information, prepared whichever reports you had wanted and uploaded everything to your private server.

Re:You might have to pay to get the records

[TheSpoom]

My Canadian bank offers 3 months worth of records on line as well.

If you want a Canadian bank that offers full history records for free, PC Financial will serve your needs (and almost never charge you a service fee, to boot!)

Re:You might have to pay to get the records

[Skapare]

Given that overdraft and other such fees are a substantial part of a bank's income, you'd think they would consider such accounts to be "high net worth" ... for the bank's own net worth that is, and provide them good service for things like transaction reports.

Oh wait ... if they provided transaction reports, many of these account holders would not be overdrawing. N/M

Re:You might have to pay to get the records

[pearl298]

No reality is that THEY get to "invest" $1M+ of your money (typically at 4% return) to be "high net worth".
Having $10M invested at a reasonable return (say 7% - meaning somewhere ELSE!) doesn't count...

Re:You might have to pay to get the records

[stephanruby]

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.

May be in Canada, in the US most of the larger banks (even the really bad ones) offer at least one year of downloadable records. I have a relative in Europe, and one of his banks gives him access to download up-to six years of records!!! Granted, six years is a bit much, but 3 months is really low in my opinion.

Re:You might have to pay to get the records

[causality]

Given that overdraft and other such fees are a substantial part of a bank's income, you'd think they would consider such accounts to be "high net worth" ... for the bank's own net worth that is, and provide them good service for things like transaction reports.

Oh wait ... if they provided transaction reports, many of these account holders would not be overdrawing. N/M

I don't like banks either (particularly because of the fractional reserve system) but I don't understand your viewpoint here. I'll provide background information to explain.

I keep my own transaction records. Banks are run by humans who can and do make mistakes despite the best of intentions; with no records of my own I'd have a really hard time disputing such a mistake. That's one reason. Another reason is that no one cares about managing my money as much as I do, nor would it be reasonable to expect otherwise. A third reason is that I don't like to needlessly be dependent on someone else to provide important information that can directly impact my life when it's something I can easily take care of myself.

Incidentally, I refuse to carry a debit card and instead I use credit cards as charge cards. They are a bad way to get a loan but they are a wonderful form of payment. The bottom line is that this greatly simplifies my checking account statements from my bank, making my record-keeping trivial.

Now to the main point. There is one and only one event that can possibly cause an overdraft: spending more money than you have placed in your account. How is that the fault of the bank? Why is it their job to make sure you are responsible and do not financially overextend yourself? Is it a problem for you that a fee is attached to an event that shouldn't happen in the first place?

I would not be shocked or amazed in the slightest, no not even a bit, to learn that the people who can't be bothered to keep their own records are the same people who create most overdrafts. They clearly think managing their money is someone else's job. That might leave them open to problems that more responsible adults would have foreseen and been able to prevent or at least mitigate. To me that is simple cause-and-effect and nothing more.

To reiterate, I don't like banks. It'd be petty to let that bias my reasoning, though in this case that isn't even a temptation. Do you know why? Because there's something I like even less than banks, and that's the decline of personal responsibility and the whole victim mentality that is rooted in it.

Re:You might have to pay to get the records

[Your.Master]

I've mostly used credit unions, not actual banks, but I've had accounts in Canada and the US. If there's a history limit on either of them, I've never encountered it (and I have gone back for years before).

It surprises me that there's any question of this at the "real" banks.

Re:You might have to pay to get the records

[nacturation]

I have enough in my account that my credit union give me good service, yet I don't have an accountant. Maybe it's because I saved my money instead of racking up credit card debt, car loans, and interest only mortgages on overpriced houses?

Or maybe because you file your own tax returns instead of letting an accountant do it for you, allowing you to do something more enjoyable like go skiing. I'm probably feeding the trolls here, but an accountant does more than just manage the finances of people who have bought too much on credit.

Re:You might have to pay to get the records

[martin-boundary]

Then again, you wouldn't be posting the question on /. you'd already have a banking officer doing it for you!

I think we should draw the line at having banking officers posting questions on /. for their clients. It's hard enough to answer some of those questions from regular slashdotters, there's no need to sprinkle them with variable interest rates and net present values on top.

Re:You might have to pay to get the records

[Dputiger]

Seconded this. PNC lets me have three months back for free--anything past that I have to request. The request fee, however, is static--it doesn't change based on how much material you want. If you're concerned about your info, you might try to go this route even if you end up switching banks. Last time I checked the fee was modest ($5).

Re:You might have to pay to get the records

[PedroV100]

btw... are you a banking officer who's starting to have this problem because of /. ?

Re:You might have to pay to get the records

[micheas]

Seconded this. PNC lets me have three months back for free--anything past that I have to request. The request fee, however, is static--it doesn't change based on how much material you want. If you're concerned about your info, you might try to go this route even if you end up switching banks. Last time I checked the fee was modest ($5).

At most US banks, fees are negotiable and somewhat arbitrary, so if you ask for a fee to be waived you have a reasonable chance that it will be waived.

Re:You might have to pay to get the records

[xaxa]

Cooperative Bank in the UK gives me 18 months of records online, though the interface says there's only 12 months available.

Natwest let me see all the transactions I've ever made, but I can only download 12 months worth at once. The interface suggests it goes back forever. I can see the first transaction from October 2004 anyway.

("1. Paid in: Student Loans Company. £1303". "2. Transfer to [university name]: Paid out: £1093". Ouch. Actually, it's quite interesting seeing how little I managed to live on during the first year of university.)

Re:You might have to pay to get the records

[Abstrackt]

Now to the main point. There is one and only one event that can possibly cause an overdraft: spending more money than you have placed in your account. How is that the fault of the bank? Why is it their job to make sure you are responsible and do not financially overextend yourself? Is it a problem for you that a fee is attached to an event that shouldn't happen in the first place?

When I was in university I owned a house and paid my living expenses by having tenants. One of them gave me a stack of post-dated checks on which I highlighted the date to avoid confusion and even went so far as to confirm the teller knew they were post-dated. A few days later, my tenant came and told me his account was not only overdrawn but that half the post-dated checks had bounced because he hit the maximum overdraft.

Clearing that situation up was an absolute mess because we had to convince the bank it was their mistake. The moment they found the checks they apologized profusely but it still took even longer to convince them to drop the fees. I would love to hear your thoughts on how this could have been prevented from our end.

Re:You might have to pay to get the records

[flappinbooger]

One of them gave me a stack of post-dated checks on which I highlighted the date to avoid confusion and even went so far as to confirm the teller knew they were post-dated

I would love to hear your thoughts on how this could have been prevented from our end.

Not giving post dated checks to the bank?

Re:You might have to pay to get the records

[operagost]

I'd have to say that yours wasn't a great system because it relied on the bank's processes. While the bank is at fault, using them as a scheduled payment service without knowing whether they could handle it is asking for trouble. I'm sure that incident predates the existence of online bill payers, but that's what I would recommend to tenants now in order to make sure they don't forget to pay their rent.

Re:You might have to pay to get the records

[Cederic]

To reiterate, I don't like banks.

So you don't like banks. Fine. Ignore the fact that your reasons are all bogus, that using a bank in no way prevents you from pro-actively managing your finances, and lets focus on this one:

Incidentally, I refuse to carry a debit card and instead I use credit cards as charge cards.

So instead of using a bank, you use either:
- the credit card issued by a bank, or
- the credit card issued by a company that doesn't want the overhead of the regulation imposed on a bank

I'm detecting a logic failure here.

. There is one and only one event that can possibly cause an overdraft: spending more money than you have placed in your account.

That's not actually true. See the reply by Abstrackt for an example.

I have multiple bank accounts. I've never gone unintentionally overdrawn (and it would've financially irresponsible to not go overdrawn as a student with a free overdraft facility - by which I mean, no interest and no charges). And yeah, I cleared that overdraft when I left uni.

I also allow the bank to look after my monthly bills, my employer insists on paying my salary into a bank account and I happily use electronic payments regularly. I also keep control of my own finances, and validate the entries in my bank statements. This takes seconds a month and is far easier than manually updating a spreadsheet (or finance package) every time I engage in a financial transaction.

I'm struggling to understand where the hell you're coming from.

Declaration of non-objectivity: I work for a bank. None of which impacts any of the above, as my main accounts are not with my employer.

Re:You might have to pay to get the records

[Skapare]

If you think spending more than you have is the ONLY means to overdraft, then you clearly do not know how the system works. A great many overdrafts are the result of errors such as double-ringing at a cash register in a store, or an online service not updating their database properly (this has really happened to me).

If banks will now obey the new law that lets people opt out of their "protection racket", then people can at least put a stop to some of the problems of errors in processing. Too bad we can't get the system really fixed, yet (for example, by making it impossible to double ring).

Re:You might have to pay to get the records

[kylegordon]

I would not be shocked or amazed in the slightest, no not even a bit, to learn that the people who can't be bothered to keep their own records are the same people who create most overdrafts. They clearly think managing their money is someone else's job. That might leave them open to problems that more responsible adults would have foreseen and been able to prevent or at least mitigate. To me that is simple cause-and-effect and nothing more.

I suspect there's another factor at play here. Yes, in this cotton wool society people are now expecting others to look after their own affairs, but there's also the class of people that really don't know how it works.

A colleague used to be a bank branch manager, and had to explain overdrafts to a customer. The customer_genuinely_ thought the bank gave him/her £100 every month, and went ballistic when the money was 'deducted' from their pay (the account was actually offset, as to be expected). He was one step away from getting penny coins out on the desk and saying 'I give you this 1p on the 28th of the month, and you give me this 1p back on the 1st of the next month'. I was flabbergasted to hear this, but to him it was just another day of explanations on how to manage your money.

This sort of attitude to banking appears to be far more widespread than we wish to believe, and makes me really wonder if we're bringing up a generation of people that have any clue whatsoever about how to lead a normal life.

Re:You might have to pay to get the records

[colinnwn]

And WTF should I have to keep my own records and balance my checkbook every month? That's something that should be automated. All I should need to do is verify that the charge I placed (especially at places where you manually add tip after the fact) is the charge debited against my account.

If we are talking about checks that can't be preauthorized, then I am fine with substantial overdraft fees as a courtesy, and giving me time to fix it, rather than sending my check to the local DA right away. But debit cards are preauthorized for the amount and completely automated. Banks should be required to provide a choice to decline on NSF for no fee, or to provide a cover loan at high interest rate. There is no excuse for them not doing this other than trying to gouge customers with fees.

*I say this being a person who pays everything by credit card, pays the credit card off entirely every month, never puts my debit card in anything but an ATM, and always has more than sufficient funds to pay every check and debit against my main checking account. The only time i've had NSF charges was on my spare checking account used only for PayPal. When I discovered that Chase paid these debits, rather than reporting NSF to PayPal so it would go onto my next funding source, I was livid. I promptly paid the fee and left my account at zero balance. I still need to go cancel it, but I'm in no hurry.

Re:You might have to pay to get the records

[causality]

If you think spending more than you have is the ONLY means to overdraft, then you clearly do not know how the system works. A great many overdrafts are the result of errors such as double-ringing at a cash register in a store, or an online service not updating their database properly (this has really happened to me).

While it was lost upon you, there is a reason why I explained that I refuse to carry a debit card and instead use credit cards as charge cards. I do that precisely because I know how the system works. That's something for you to consider prior to declaring what I do and do not know.

The scenarios you mention would not be a problem with a credit card. If a cashier screws up and places a double charge to my credit card, they are doing that with the bank's money, not with my money. I can very easily dispute that double charge and I will prevail in that scenario. Such a dispute/chargeback process is much more hassle for the merchant than it would be for me, providing a disincentive for such sloppiness in the future.

You don't leave yourself open to such things unless you allow a merchant to directly access your money. I choose not to let them do that, and as a result, such problems are unknown to me.

A debit card might be appropriate for someone with bad credit or no credit. It might also be appropriate for people who know they won't use credit responsibly and don't want to cause bad credit for themselves. Otherwise, a credit card is equal to or better than a debit card in every conceivable way.

Try your Credit Union

[Anonymous Coward]

My credit union LFCU lets you pull down up to 16 months of statements....

Re:Try your Credit Union

[perbert]

I second this idea. Not only are you supporting a locally owned business, but they're also supporting other locally owned businesses. And as a member, you can often get good rates for loans. Also, they're not responsible for all the financial woes in the USA. Well, OK, that last part is speculation, but it does sound good...

Re:Try your Credit Union

[log0n]

I'll give a big Fuck You to my former credit union (Educational Systems Employees FCU in DC/MD - http://www.esfcu.org/). I was a member for over 20 years (going back to childhood - my first savings account) but was just given the boot last month after not enrolling in the government re-regulated courtesy pay program.

My parents - members for over 35 years iirc (both teachers for whom the whole CU was built to serve) - also got notices of intent to boot for not enrolling in the courtesy pay program. I've long been dissatisfied with the CU service so I accepted the account closure, but while I have other accounts in other institutions, my parents bank solely with ESE so they ended up raising holy hell to contest the policy.

Big corp, big banking, none of them need to care about us anymore.. and why should they? Just wait us out.. we all die sooner or later while industry keeps on chugging along.

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

[SilverHatHacker]

Even better would be a way to automatically download it and import it. If the file is at a constant URL, you should be able to use a little $scripting_lang and a little creativity to take care of this. If the URL is randomized or obfuscated, you might have a bit more fun with it.

Re:That's the wrong question

[drinkypoo]

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

Bullshit. That information is about you, it belongs to you, and it really ought to be available by law. The bank gets to set restrictions on how you may communicate with them, it is past time for us to set restrictions on them.

Re:That's the wrong question

[nedlohs]

because nothing could possibly go wrong putting your banking login credentials in something a script can access.

Of course microsoft money, quicken, etc do that so I guess it's not considered bad after all.

Re:That's the wrong question

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Bullshit. That information is about you, it belongs to you, and it really ought to be available by law. The bank gets to set restrictions on how you may communicate with them, it is past time for us to set restrictions on them.

No, that's bullshit. The bank provides him with a transaction history, for free, for the current period and going back two months. He's just too lazy to take advantage of it.

He needs to either get off his ass and do his own recordkeeping, or pay an accountant to do it for him.

Re:That's the wrong question

[Idarubicin]

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

Indeed. Do you do online banking at least once per month? I'm assuming that you're paying some of your recurring bills or transferring funds to your credit cards at least that often; make the download of transaction data a part of that monthly process.

Or set a recurring alarm on your cell phone's calendar, your email client, or what-have-you. If you can't set a three-month recurrence for new reminders, then set them as four annual events at quarterly intervals.

Go old school and make a note in your day planner, or create a tickler file.

This isn't rocket science.

Re:That's the wrong question

[Peeteriz]

Banking account history is the basic proof about what/how much the bank owes to him; if they can't provide the history, then they have no claims that the balance is correct.

They may and do charge fees for older history though - but banks are mandated to keep, store and provide accurate info for quite a long time; practices vary between countries, but 5-7 years would be the minimum, if not simply the total life of the account (which might be, say, a 40 year mortgage).

Re:That's the wrong question

[InfiniteWisdom]

If you care so much about the "information about you", you can download it more than once every three months. They provide you a statement every month. There's no reason why they should be obligated to store this information for you indefinitely.

Some banks do that as an extra service but I think it's preposterous to claim that they should be required to do so by law.

Re:That's the wrong question

[darkpixel2k]

because nothing could possibly go wrong putting your banking login credentials in something a script can access.

Of course microsoft money, quicken, etc do that so I guess it's not considered bad after all.

Microsoft money, quicken...those are windows programs. I can see why you'd think storing login credentials is a bad idea.

I actually have a cron job that uses CURL to connect to my bank, figure out which question they ask for their multi-factor authentication, login, and download the last 30 days of account history. I sleep quite well at night knowing that it's running from my linux server that only has SSH access.

Re:That's the wrong question

[icebraining]

One thing is having a bank history, another is providing it online for free.

I'd rather set up a cron script than having to drive to my bank's office every time I wanted check something.

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.

Re:That's the wrong question

[SilverHatHacker]

That's the risk you take for convenience. Using a bank, using a debit card, using a credit card, and banking over the internet all represent some levels of risk, but we use them because it's easier.

Re:That's the wrong question

[Peeteriz]

True, but it essentially turns it into essentially a service price issue.
If/when banks in USA start considering it as important to competition, they will offer it for free, but AFAIK it (and internet banking features in general) aren't considered as important as elsewhere. I have a feeling that in many countries in Europe or SE-Asia it wouldn't be a concern, as everyone offers it free of charge.

It makes economic sense as well (and I have spent some years in banking IT) - my full financial history, including all monies received, all bills paid and all card purchases is an order of magnitude smaller than my gmail archive even when counting number of entries, not their size; so it's not that expensive to get a database for fast querying to get full account history - if the bank wants to do it.

I'd actually guess that even the bank mentioned in the original question actually has the capability, but it's deliberately not offered, since they would lose some $$ in fee revenue if they provided the unlimited history online.

Re:That's the wrong question

[hedwards]

That's a solid point, a slightly less bad way is having something pop up to remind you to give it the information so that it downloads it for you. It's not as bad, however you still have to be mindful of any portion of the process which isn't secure.

Re:That's the wrong question

[hedwards]

In the US, they typically limit the period over which you can complain about inaccuracies to about a month. After which they say too bad, you didn't report it.

Re:That's the wrong question

[hedwards]

Indeed, the bigger problem is when you start to have multiple accounts across multiple institutions. Downloading from one or two banks isn't that big a deal, but doing it across more gets to be a hassle really quickly.

Re:That's the wrong question

[Sparr0]

So have the script put said URL in your saved browser session, so that the next time you open the browser you get sent to the page to download the data, with all the appropriate security precautions. This serves as a reminder and takes all the work out of following through on it, but without security problems or complete automation.

Re:That's the wrong question

[dbcad7]

There is no script needed.. Most banks send you a monthly email telling you when the current statement is available,. especially if you have gone "paperless". That the poster who asked the original question, can't be bothered once a month to follow the email he received from the bank and spend a minute or two to download his statement (If it's so important to have it, which I doubt) well.. that's just lazy. And I can guarantee that he probably visits his bank site at least several times a month anyway... But sure, he has the right to consider changing banks that might cater more to his procrastination lifestyle.. it's just not going to matter a hill-a-beans or change a damn thing for him.

Re:That's the wrong question

[SilverHatHacker]

He said something about importing it into MySQL and running reports on it. That mean's he's smart enough to write a Python script.

Re:That's the wrong question

[drinkypoo]

True, but it essentially turns it into essentially a service price issue.
If/when banks in USA start considering it as important to competition, they will offer it for free,

Yep, that's what I was getting at. The amount of data actually presented to the customer is minuscule, even if it's years of data. The total amount stored on their transactions is much larger, but they can't query all of those records anyway. There's really no reason not to give this data to the customer for years and years. The whole fucking point of online banking is that I don't need any other records. If I can't do all my banking online, then just send me paper like always.

Re:That's the wrong question

[rizzo420]

The bank has the information, but doesn't store it for you indefinitely like others said. If you need more than the last 3 months, they've got it, but they're likely gonna charge you to access it.

If you really care so much, you'd remember to download it more regularly than once every 3 months. If you can't remember to do it that often, you obviously don't care enough about it.

Re:That's the wrong question

[General Wesc]

Using a bank, using a debit card, using a credit card, and banking over the internet all represent some levels of risk, but we use them because it's easier.

Debit and credit cards have considerably less risk than the alternative. If your cash is lost/stolen, it's gone. If your credit card or debit card is lost/stolen, you lose a little time dealing with the issue, but you face no financial liability.

Re:That's the wrong question

[mattack2]

Actually, you can be liable for $50 with credit cards, but I believe that is typically waived with quick reporting of the stolen cards/numbers.

Debit cards take money directly out of your account. I don't believe there are laws about the amount of liability on debit cards.

Re:That's the wrong question

[kenh]

Why not each pay day?

End of the month?

First of the month?

I don't think you are trying if none of the above is a workable solution...

Re:That's the wrong question

[TheLink]

Are you using disk encryption as well? If you aren't I hope you are aware that anyone who has access to your server/drive has access to those banking credentials.

You might consider that an acceptable risk of course.

Re:That's the wrong question

[Relayman]

In the United States, the protections for debit cards are similar to credit cards. According to Wikipedia, you may be liable for $500 of debits to a debit card if you wait more than two business days to report the unauthorized transaction. This only applies if you use it as a debit card (PIN entered); many people suggest using it like a credit card (signature required) for this reason. The other problem with debit cards that I'm aware of is getting overdraft charges and similar fees refunded by the bank if your debit card is misused.

Re:That's the wrong question

[darkpixel2k]

Are you using disk encryption as well? If you aren't I hope you are aware that anyone who has access to your server/drive has access to those banking credentials.

You might consider that an acceptable risk of course.

Nope.
My workstation is sitting in my house. If someone physically gains access to my house, I have bigger issues. ;)

Even if that does happen, it's sitting on a server that is on a shelf behind my desk in a very bad/weird configuration. If I have to pull the thing out, I have to spend 15 minutes moving furniture to access it. There's no keyboard, video, or mouse access--just ssh.

Re:That's the wrong question

[phek]

its $50 up to the first 2 days, $500 between 2 and i think its 60 days, then all of it after 60 days. I went through this hassle a couple months ago when someone cloned my debit card from when i used it at chevron (the internal receipts of debit card transactions store the entire card number). Luckily I happened to notice it the day it happened (after my bank acct was already down to -$1,200) and bank of america credited my money back within 2 days with no liability charge pending investigation. still fuck bank of america.

Re:That's the wrong question

[Moses48]

cron job. need I say more?

Re:That's the wrong question

[Splab]

With 5 years of backlog you are usually beyond the point where it matters - I have that with my bank (not in US), I have a few times needed to get proof of a payment several years back, but never needed to go beyond 5 years.

Re:That's the wrong question

[Another, completely]

How often do most people make a detailed review of their personal spending? Not every month. When they do review it, they probably want to see at least six or seven months (preferably two years for year-on-year comparison). This sounds fairly normal to me. Check the monthly statements to see that they all look about right, but download the digital version to your analysis database when you have a day or two available for introspection.

If you think there is a good security reason that the bank should not make older records available, then that's fair enough, but the fact that someone only gets around to making a full review every May doesn't mean that he doesn't care about his spending in August. If he knows that he's not going to look at the data until May, why should he need to set a reminder to download it piecewise every month just to get around a limitation of the bank's system?

Re:That's the wrong question

[xaxa]

Are you using disk encryption as well? If you aren't I hope you are aware that anyone who has access to your server/drive has access to those banking credentials.

You might consider that an acceptable risk of course.

I would probably consider it an acceptable risk if:
1) The security questions don't have real answers. My usual bank asks for "memorable name" etc, and I'd rather have "aok8BKCduc!.u" as the answer if a script is going to have the details.
2) If further authentication is required to transfer money out of the account. Both of my accounts in the UK require a code generated by a smart card to transfer money out of the account. Without that you can view statements, cancel direct debits and a few other things, but nothing worthwhile to someone who just wants the money.

Re:That's the wrong question

[MrLogic17]

And that's why I demand to receive paper statments. I don't trust the banks to keep the history around for when I need it. That and I'll never have to rememeber to download & archive something that they will print and mail to me automatically.

I get the best of both worlds- an automatic hard copy for long term storage, and on-line access for when I need current activity.

Re:That's the wrong question

[Cro Magnon]

That's my problem. I have two main banks. My older account is what I use for routine bill paying, and I DL from that every month or two. My other account has a higher interest, but gets less use. I can access my history online for over a year, unless they've changed it, but I'm already beyond their 2 month DL limit. That account's paperless, so my only reminder is an email that often gets forgotten in my pile of e-stuff.

Re:That's the wrong question

[muridae]

Geek type answer: parse the email. I don't know how your bank does their paperless system, but my dead tree statement is in a easily readable format, with key words and spacing for all the important information. If the paperless email statement is the same, just perl/python/sed the thing into something that the database likes. And if you still get a paper statement, OCR (banks like OCR fonts) and check it before filing it into the SQL format of your choice. Then the script doesn't have your login data, and only has to run on local information. You could even set it to a cron job, and have it check your mail box for new bank statements.

Re:That's the wrong question

[muridae]

I don't know about your agreement, but mine has always been phrased as X number of days after you notice, or they inform you of, the inaccuracy. Granted, with a monthly statement, you are being informed at least every 30 days.

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".

Re:happy to provide history to the Feds

[line-bundle]

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".

It is Uncle Sam after all. Look how much he gave to the banks recently. How much did you give?

Re:happy to provide history to the Feds

[InfiniteWisdom]

All US banks are required by law to offer many years worth of transaction history to any Federal agency that subpoenas this information.

There, fixed it for you.

Re:happy to provide history to the Feds

[phantomfive]

Mine will, (Bank of the West), and did, but they charged a $30 research fee. Annoying. I wonder if they charge the same to the federal government.

Re:happy to provide history to the Feds

[ModernGeek]

Yeah, and they'll charge the customer about $100.00 every time the Feds or State requests that information. Then they'll freeze your bank accounts. Then when you ask the Feds or State WTH is up they say, "We didn't tell them to do that, they may have their own policies regarding how they handle such events." You ask the bank and the bank says, "We need a letter from them to allow us to release the funds." Then you finally create a three way call between all the offending parties and they just tell you whatever the hell you want to hear to get you off the telephone. When you ask the State what is going on, they claim that they do not know. If you ask them if there is a problem of if they want money, they say no.

I have a new bank now. Now I know why most business persons are paranoid about the government and banks.

Re:happy to provide history to the Feds

[ShakaUVM]

>>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".

Even horrible, horrible US Bank, who has to pull this data using a DOS prompt connection to their ancient mainframe, will make the data available to you (for a fee).

Wells Fargo has all the data you want or need (CSV format, or integrated downloads right inside of Quickbooks for auto-reconciliation, which is NICE), which goes back through the end of the last calendar year for all of your accounts. You can also set up guest access on a per-account basis, so my accountant can just grab my business transactions and not my personal ones.

ING Direct

[Anonymous Coward]

I just tested it, and their download form let me put in my own start/ending ranges (tried three year's worth) and it worked. It's also just a great bank in general.

Re:ING Direct

[smallfries]

They may look that way but here are a couple of things to watch out for:

Even if you opt for electronic statements they will still send you 3-4 pieces of junk mail a year. If anything goes wrong with that mail and it gets bounced back to them they will freeze your account until you verify your addresss by mail. If you need to access your money in the week or so that takes you are shit out of luck.

Watch your interest rate it will drop after a year. Once your bonus interest rate goes you cannot recover it. If you close your account and reopen another there must be a three month gap before you count as a new customer and get the advertised rate.

Scripts + cron job

[dandaman32]

Like the "department" tag says... write a script that fetches and parses it automatically. Preferably stored on an encrypted medium on a reasonably secured box, so that your bank password isn't stored in plaintext and the chances of it getting out are minimal.

See if you can create a second user that has access to the same account, preferably with read only access - for example, up here at RIT the student financial website ("eServices") lets you create accounts for use by the benefactors of your education. I took advantage of this feature and wrote a simple two line bash script that logs in with a sub-account I made that only has enough access to read the balance of my food debit account. The purpose I plan to use it for is a little different (screenlets widget) but the methodology is the same: peek at the login form HTML (to figure out what form fields are required), play with curl until you get a proper response, and grep around for the information you need.

Use an online service

[Anonymous Coward]

Move to a service such as Yodlee or mint

Wells Fargo

[Ethanol-fueled]

If you are stupid enough to bank with Wells Fargo, they offer up to 18 months of history in 2 Quicken formats, 3 Microsoft Money formats, and CSV.

My credit union offers indefinite date range in those 3 formats as well.

Re:Wells Fargo

[failedlogic]

"If you are stupid enough to bank with Wells Fargo"

LOL! Thanks made my day.

Re:Wells Fargo

[Binary Boy]

Care to expand on that? I've been with Wells Fargo for 14 years and, having also had accounts (along with my wife) at several other national banks, and a credit union, it's the one I've been consistently happiest with. Just curious what makes Wells Fargo the idiot's choice.

Re:Wells Fargo

[bitcastle]

Its just a case of make fun of the big bank. I switched to wells fargo because they have their act together with online banking and lots of ATMs out west. local small bank tried to double ATM fees on my and they have only 2 ATMs in the world. sorry but no.

Re:Wells Fargo

[Myopic]

The notion of ATM fees angers me. Banks built and instituted these machines in order to save themselves money because now they don't have to pay a human to hand out cash. For us to pay, in order for them to save money, as asinine.

That is why I bank with USAA, which refunds all ATM fees for any ATM I use, no matter what. As a bonus, they also refund all debit card fees, which is gravy because the stores pay that fee, not me.

Re:Wells Fargo

[D'Sphitz]

I'm with you, I've had accounts with half a dozen banks over the last decade and Wells Fargo beats them all by far, in every way. I'd like to hear the grandparent elaborate on why I'm so stupid for using them, it seems it would be more stupid of me to go to a different bank with sub-standard service, excessive fees, grumpy employees and crappy online banking for no reason at all.

Re:Wells Fargo

[ultrapenguin]

I've been with WellsFargo for about 15 years (actually started with a smaller local bank they bought out) and I can actually pull all my statements (in PDF) since the month I opened my account - and they carried over the statements/history from the bank they picked up. Shrug. Last year my account brought in ~$1k in interest, so I'm not sure I'm getting your "stupid enough to bank with WellsFargo" comment either. Do they suck or something?

Re:Wells Fargo

[KshGoddess]

I'm going to third, or fourth Wells Fargo. They've really cleaned up their act from a decade ago. I think it's partially because they've eaten so many small banks that they've got the process down. I've had nothing but pleasant bank employees and no hassles since the bank we were at got taken over by Wells, and I'm not a "big-time" customer, I have a paycheck auto-deposited and a small savings account (which I opened ONLINE without having to go to any of the tens of locations within my 25-mile radius).

Key was pretty awful when we had them, especially their online banking. TCF's bill pay is extraordinarily horrible, from what I remember (we'd set up recurring mortgage payments through it, and they'd come out at seemingly random times of the month, most of the times late) but we'd have Bank of America again, now that there are branches closer to us than New Mexico.

Re:Wells Fargo

[Myopic]

Orly? Once a month I see "Debit Charge Rebate" or somesuch on my bank statement. It's for a few or several dollars, and I don't know what else it could be but a debit reimbursement. But, I never bothered to check, I just happily take the dollars.

Re:Wells Fargo

[Myopic]

Yes, I'm in the same situation as you.

If you ask me "what should happen", it should be this: all the banks and credit unions and other consumer financial institutions get together and have a universal system for exchanging ATM fees which is free and transparent to end users. This would be similar to the universal system for cashing checks. That would cover well over 95% of ATMs, and the rest of the ATMs (owned by private businesses which aren't banks or whatever) could still charge a fee but would find it difficult to rip off consumers, because the fee-ATM would be surrounded by free-ATMs.

But I don't expect that to happen; it would be unacceptably pro-consumer. So, people like you and me will have to continue finding ways to avoid the fees.

Re:Wells Fargo

[Myopic]

PS I looked at another checking account and there is a "DEBIT CARD REBATE" for two dollars and four cents.

Conclude whatever you think is right. I don't know what it is, but I'm happy for the two dollars.

Re:Wells Fargo

[ultrapenguin]

"Wells Fargo High Yield Savings".
Minimum amount is $25k or else you get a service fee. Interest rate varies, but is "high".

Re:Wells Fargo

[Skapare]

There are plenty where that came from:

• If you are stupid enough to bank with Bank of America
• If you are stupid enough to bank with BB&T
• If you are stupid enough to bank with Chase
• If you are stupid enough to bank with Citi

If I had time, I'd type in the full list.

Re:Wells Fargo

[Skapare]

A friend of mine had a terrible experience with Wells Fargo ... and he didn't even bank with them. The problem was, they thought he did. And this was all because some bank clerk (because he was in there to cash a check drawn on that bank) was trying to get him to open a checking account, and he was stupid enough to give her his name and address so they could mail him some info. They mailed him nothing. This bank bitch went ahead and opened him a "free" account without his permission (my guess so she could meet her end of month new account quota). He also happened to move, so later when statements came, he didn't get them. How was he to know he needed to notify a bank he never opened an account with? The account wallowed in "$0.00 balance hell" for a few months until an annual service fee of $30 triggered a $35 overdraft fee followed by another $35 fee for being late on paying the $65 owe on the annual fee and overdraft fee. He found out about this when a debt collector called wanting $750 to cover $370 the bank originally thought he owed, all because Wells Fargo has no process whatsoever to be sure their "people" don't do things like this.

Stay away from EVERY big bank, but especially EVERY bank that got bailout money. Stay away from them forever.

Re:Wells Fargo

[Myopic]

Oh, thanks, that is +1 Informative.

Credit Union

[DogDude]

There's no reason for *anybody* except for the absolute wealthiest to use banks. Use a credit union. Most credit unions provide much better service (including more than 3 months' transaction history).

Re:Credit Union

[siddesu]

Yes, you just need to make sure your credit union is federally insured against a default. Reading the FAQ on federal insurance of credit unions, it would seem not all of them are.

http://www.ncua.gov/Resources/ShareInsurance/NCUAInsuranceFundFAQs.htm

Re:Credit Union

[Totenglocke]

Except that if you move or travel, you're much less likely to have a branch / ATM for your credit union available. With larger banks, it's much easier to access your money when travelling or avoid having to change banks when moving to a new city.

Re:Credit Union

[Stiletto]

Bank industry FUD. Lots of credit unions offer free ATM services to members of other credit unions. So during the time it takes to join a different credit union after you move, you can almost always find local ATMs that will accept transactions.

Re:Credit Union

[larry bagina]

My credit union (the nearest office is 3,000 miles away from me -- I avoided changing banks when I moved) refunds ATM fees. Not that I've ever needed it; all the ATM machines at the local credit unions and the local grocery stores are in a network so I've never once paid a fee.

Re:Credit Union

[autocracy]

Digital Federal Credit Union, besides tons of other stellar reasons, handles remote banking wonderfully. For example, shared branching allows pretty much any branch service to be performed at any participating credit union: http://www.cuservicecenter.com/ Besides that, up to $10 worth of ATM fees are reimbursed to my account each month.

Their customer service is wonderful to the point that I stay with them even though there are no branches of their credit union in my state. I deposit checks by taking pictures of them with my iPhone. I can use the local branch of another credit union if I need to do something in-person. I really have no complaints about DFCU.

Of course, this means that any of those 4,127 branches reciprocates with their own, so you can join your local credit union and get at least that benefit, if not others.

Re:Credit Union

[kidgenius]

It's called shared branching. Pretty much every credit union lets you use ATMs of other credit unions across the country. If you look on an ATM and it has the co-op logo, you're good http://www.co-opfs.org/public/locators/atmlocator/index.cfm

Re:Credit Union

[Myopic]

If that assertion is keeping you from using a credit union, I encourage you to reconsider the assertion.

Re:Credit Union

[Son of Byrne]

No reason except the fact that Credit Unions are not covered by the FDIC. Even that is not a big deal since there is a government agency that covers deposits in credit unions as well, but with one little snag: a lot of regulatory agencies that create rules dealing with business accounts created for customers require (as part of those rules) that those accounts be covered by the FDIC.

Stupid rules get in the way of a lot of good things (like My favorite bank).

Re:Credit Union

[ftobin]

I wouldn't mind looking into credit unions but their locale-specific membership restrictions seem quite pointless, and given where I live (Charleston, SC) I haven't found one that offers better services than my current bank (First IB) that I've had for 10 years and throughout 6 moves. I have no reason to tie my financial institutions to my current area of residence.

Re:Credit Union

[BobGregg]

All *federal* credit unions are insured by NCUA's share insurance fund. Not all states required state-chartered credit unions to be insured in the same way, though many are, and most are insured in at least some way. It's pretty easy to tell if it's a federal credit union - it usually has the words "federal credit union" (or initials FCU) in the title.

Re:Credit Union

[ChrisMaple]

Some credit unions act as if they were run by amateurs. To some extent they are, since their customers are members and at least in name are the owners.

Re:Credit Union

[Rinisari]

Sell me on the idea of a credit union. I've been a loyal user of my local small bank, and am not currently looking to switch. However, my mind is always open to suggestions. I've heard a few good things about credit unions, but am not really aware of the benefits and detractions.

Re:Credit Union

[Lord Kano]

I can shenanigans.

ATMS are on the same damned network. Any ATM that you go to will be able to get your money.

Look Here. Credit unions have even been banding together to offer fee-free networks that most banks can't compare to.

LK

Re:Credit Union

[Lord Kano]

My bad. I meant "I CALL Shenanigans. "

Another service

[Georules]

Mint.com is pretty great for connecting to whatever bank you have and it'll download your reports and also automatic categorization. I have almost 2 years of data in it, and they let you download it all CSV. It also has me in the habit of checking all of my accounts once a week, by just logging onto one website. Nice way to be on top of anything that might be fraudulent.

Re:Another service

[gonz]

Mint.com is pretty great for connecting to whatever bank you have and it'll download your reports and also automatic categorization. I have almost 2 years of data in it, and they let you download it all CSV. It also has me in the habit of checking all of my accounts once a week, by just logging onto one website. Nice way to be on top of anything that might be fraudulent.

What about the privacy issues of a public web site that tracks a household's entire financial profile? Intuit's claim:

"We make money only when you do - We give you personalized ideas on how to save money by presenting the greatest savings from among thousands of financial products. If you decide to make a change that saves you some cash, we sometimes earn a small fee from the bank or company you switch to. You save a lot; we make a little."

And in the Privacy and Security Policy: "Simply put, we do not and will not sell or rent your personal information to anyone, for any reason, at any time."

But they DO seem to sell your information, as long as the data format can be construed as "anonymous" (before being combined with whatever other datasets the buyer might have):

"Intuit may make anonymous or aggregate personal information and disclose such data only in a non-personally identifiable manner to:

• Advertisers and other third parties for their marketing and promotional purposes, such as the number of users who applied for a credit card or how many users clicked on a particular Intuit Offer;
• Organizations approved by Intuit that conduct research into consumer spending; [...]

I'd be willing to bet they make a lot from these sales. "You save a lot; we make a little" indeed. Even if Intuit's current intentions are 100% honorable, let's not overlook the ubiquitous "we can change what you agreed to without your consent" clause in the Terms Of Service:

"Intuit may modify this Agreement from time to time. Any and all changes to this Agreement will be posted on the Mint.com site. In addition, the Agreement will always indicate the date it was last revised. You are deemed to accept and agree to be bound by any changes to the Agreement when you use the Service after those changes are posted."

This practice is where all the privacy trouble started with FaceBook. I have no idea how it's legally enforceable, but somehow it is, and in fact it's standard boilerplate for TOS contracts everywhere. :-)

Re:Another service

[Georules]

I'll echo the above comment and also say that I really don't care if they see my credit card transactions at the mall or at a restaurants. I can always take out cash from an ATM if I want to make Shady Purchase X. If you are really all that concerned you can just open an account at Bank A to hold all of your savings and use a personal account at Bank B. Use Bank B for transactions that you want to follow with mint. Use Bank A for savings so mint doesn't know how much money you have. Using an online bank like Ally Bank would make this easy.

Re:Another service

[Georules]

Oh, and that reminds me, Ally Bank lets you download everything CSV and retains all of your records online. This could be an option for the OP.

Re:Another service

[bananaquackmoo]

One more vote for mint. PS: It's not just obviously fraudulent activity that you can catch with it, its bank, credit, and loan fees that shouldn't be there.

Re:Another service

[Lord Kano]

But they DO seem to sell your information, as long as the data format can be construed as "anonymous"

If it's been anonymous data that's been aggregated with the data of a few thousand other users, it's not really "your" information anymore.

It's one thing if someone sells "Bill Jones, 29 years old, 412-555-1212, 123 March Ave, Beverly Hills CA, 90210. Wachovia bank Saving account balance $40,000USD. Previous years spending on electronics $4000." and so on but it's completely different than "60% of people in the 25 - 35 age range spent more than $500 on electronics in the previous year"

LK

my local bank

[ducomputergeek]

Allows me to pull down statements including transaction histories for the past year in CSV, Quickbooks (on the merchant account), Quicken, txt, and XML. They use another company that handles their web portal, but its' pretty easy to use even if it does look like it was designed for Netscape 4. I download my statements monthly when emailed and review them. Regions also has a decent web portal as well, at least on the business side of things. I've never used them for personal banking.

That being said, I know there's a punchline there somewhere with "Transactional History" and MySQL.

BankAtlantic

[timkb4cq]

BankAtlantic, a florida bank. I never tried to download more than a month's worth before, so I just tried it. Downloaded 4 years worth with no fuss. Had the choice of OFX, QFX, QBO & CSV

Hmmm...

[pedantic bore]

I have a hard time remembering to pull my transaction history down every three months

A suggestion:

1. Find a calendar program that will remind you when it's time to do things. For example, the google calendar.
2. Program it to nag you every few weeks to download the transaction info from your bank. Make the interval short enough so that you can afford to miss one or two if you're on vacation or utterly absent-minded.
3. When it nags you to do so, download the transaction info... and back it up, of course.

Problem solved, without changing banks, or breaking a sweat.

Re:Hmmm...

[c 0xFF]

Hey, we're all nerds here. Set up a cron job to download once a month or so.

Of course, scripting the download might be a bit hard, depending on the bank. YMMV.

Re:Hmmm...

[pedantic bore]

You may feel differently, of course, but I'm not inclined to leave my banking credentials in the hands of a cron job.

mint.com

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject

Sounds like a job for cron.

[jcr]

Why don't you just set up a script to read the transactions nightly?

-jcr

Re:Sounds like a job for cron.

[slashkitty]

Logging into my bank is not scriptable (or at least, not easily)... They use a virtual keyboard that changes location each time. It's annoying to enter my code word each time, but nice to know that script kiddies can't get into it.

Why not solve the problem a different way?

[einhverfr]

Set up a Perl script to jump through all their hoops, etc. Then set up cron or anacron to go through that once a month and validate the results.

Re:Why not solve the problem a different way?

[Bjecas]

Mark it on your calendar, then you'll be sure to remember to click that "Download" button three months from now.

It's simpler, faster and more cost effective, not to mention way easier to maintain and carries no additional security risks. Most of /. would probably still write a script though.

B of A

[Lehk228]

Bank of America offers 12 months of back data, and if you can't be bothered with it for a whole year, it just isn't important is it?

Re:B of A

[hex0D]

The only problem here being is this requires you to bank with B of A. Anecdotal evidence (as in everyone I know who has any experience with them) strongly suggests you avoid them, and I'll bet there's plenty of quantitative customer surveys to back it up.

Re:B of A

[JeanBaptiste]

and there's a link to download it in csv.

Re:B of A

[The Hatchet]

To be honest, I bank with Bank of America just because of the convenience of their online banking and locations around the many different places I live, have lived, and routinely pass through. I have never had any issues, I get quite a decent interest rate, and can easily send and receive funds securely, and the branch workers have been nothing but friendly. Even when I take out inordinately large numbers of quarters.

Re:B of A

[Lehk228]

you can get anecdotal evidence about any bank sucking. I never had any trouble with B of A. I have noticed a fairly strong correlation between people hating Bank of America and people who fuck up their finances regularly and in spectacular ways, like forgetting that there is a large rent check that hasn't posted, or having an account that can be drawn from by check, debit card, electronic debit and or ATM at the same time.

Re:B of A

[kidgenius]

My biggest issue is that BofA charges you fees for every last little thing you could ever imagine. Don't keep at least $300 in your savings account? That's a $5/month fee. My credit union only requires me to keep $25 and ING allows me to keep $0.

Re:B of A

[ChrisMaple]

"Free online bill payment service" costs banks a lot less than handling checks. They're saving money when you use it. You are too.

Re:B of A

[ChrisMaple]

Let's see... In 2009 I do my income taxes in January, In 2010 I do them in April. With 1 year lookback, there's three months of data I can't access, and you think that's not important?

Most banks I've been with go back 1 year at least.

[wardred]

& they offer at least Quicken and CSV. 'Course, I can't promise said bank won't go bankrupt, get absorbed into another bank, or change their back end system, in which case your history may be lost.

My suggestion is to not let 6+ months of transactions go unaccounted for. If you've your transactions for all but the last month or 3, then most banks will let you pull the rest of the transactions.

That way, if they get bought, change their back end, or whatever, you have all, or 99% of your data.

If you have your transactions saved locally and downloaded about once a month, then it shouldn't matter that you can only get 3-6 months of transaction data.

My 2c.

Huntington

[SirRandom]

I use Huntington and I just was able to download my entire transaction history since mid 2009 (When I opened the account). It took two date ranges to get it, but the information is there and available.

Re:Huntington

[JimWise]

It looks like Huntington's downloadable records go back a scrolling window of three years. My Huntington account dates back a bit further (I opened my savings account when I was in first grade, about 30 years ago.) I used 1900 for the starting year and the records it reported back started with September 2007.

I agree with what others have said though. If you can not remember to grab your data once every month, let alone once every three months, then apparently the data is not all that important to you. It would also be better to set up a pop-up calendar reminder or cron job than to rely on the bank to forever allow X months of history for free since they can change their record availability at any time. If some unusual event does occur where you need more of the record history from the bank I am sure you would be able to do so from any of them for a relatively reasonable fee.

Security means inconvenience.

[Anonymous Coward]

Security is the reason why you can't have an automated script downloading your data like that. My bank has three layers of security on their website: multi-band authentication via password, personal knowledge question and verification by displaying the personalized image and keyphrase I chose.

ingdirect does

[eabell]

I just downloaded 3 years of my savings account information on ingdirect to test. They offered it in CSV and two other formats (like Quicken probably, I forget specifically and already closed that tab out).

You clearly are willing to pay...

[notthepainter]

You are clearly willing to pay a little bit for this, since you don't mention any extra fees. So this sounds like a service opportunity to me.

For only $3.99/month I'll deliver your csv records to you. Just send me you account and password information. Might as well give me your social, mother's maiden name, and favorite color.

No problemo...

US Bank

[Anonymous Coward]

Keeps 90 days of history and offers a quicken format dump.

Put your login credentials in a comment here

[nedlohs]

We'll be sure to make sure to download the data every month and email it to you.

low tech solution

[doktorstop]

Don't switch banks... get a calendar :)

USAA

[PenquinCoder]

Seriously... has everything you'll need, including finical reports, transaction details and you know.. great rates on just about everything.

Re:USAA

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll concur on USAA. USAA is an outgrowth of what used to be a set of support services for active and retired military personal and their families. They have turned into a full fledged financial & banking services company and most of their services are now available to the average non-military joe. It's branchless banking at its best.

Really excellent service, and if you need to talk with someone you can get them on the phone without having to wait more than 60 seconds... and you are talking to an American who speaks understandable english :-). USAA does very little, if any, outsourcing.

All the various account types are tied together into the web interface and very nicely integrated. Credit card, savings, checking, brokerage, bill pay, etc. They don't glitz up the interface... it works smoothly and it works well.

I personally put as many of my purchases as possible on my credit card, which I pay off every month, and get a paper record. That gives me a nearly full record for my spending.

-Me-

Re:USAA

[imamac]

And family.

Re:USAA

[Wonko the Sane]

I'm pretty sure anyone can get a bank account.

Insurance is military only, however.

Re:USAA

[Genocaust]

Except you need some form of US military affiliation for this. I do agree they're great, though (very happy customer of 7 years :).

Re:USAA

[dave981]

I just checked, only 5 months of my checking account could be downloaded. Not sure if this was a transaction limit, or a time limit. (I tried putting in a date in 2006).

I love USAA. I just submitted a 'suggestion' to USAA to increase the time limit. My guess is that they probably only keep ~6 months worth of transactions online accessible.

I haven't used Microsoft Money or Quicken in a while to see if that allows someone to pull more information. If I ever started using one of those tools again, then I'd probably like to be able to pull a few years worth of data.

Re:USAA

[drummerboy195]

Second that, although I believe admission to USAA is still limited to active US armed forces personnel or their direct dependents, or dependents of current members.

Re:USAA

[jfreaksho]

Not entirely true- for full access to all services they offer, yes. However, from the website:

"USAA's investment products, most checking and savings products, credit cards, life insurance, and shopping and discounts are available to other individuals [Non-military affiliated]. While auto and property insurance policies are not available due to membership eligibility requirements, we can still help.

It's a great bank, whether you have the military affiliation or not.
J.

Re:USAA

[jfreaksho]

Posted this above, but worth reposting here:

"USAA's investment products, most checking and savings products, credit cards, life insurance, and shopping and discounts are available to other individuals. While auto and property insurance policies are not available due to membership eligibility requirements, we can still help.

I highly recommend it.
J.

Re:USAA

[idamaybrown]

Nope, only if you want their home or auto insurance. Everything else is open to the public.

Re:USAA

[Genocaust]

Didn't realize this; it must be a fairly new change. I remember when I first signed up in 2003 or so I had to verify I was military just to open a checking account. Nobody can beat Deposit@Mobile :)

Have Mint.com do the work for you

[g-doo]

You could also import your transaction history into Mint.com. Once you have it linked to your bank's account, Mint will automatically grab the latest transactions any time you log in.

USAA

[Wonko the Sane]

I haven't had an account for long enough to test how far back they will let you download but there is no obvious limit.

USAA is pretty awesome in general so I'd recommend it anyway.

OK, so this isn't an answer, but

[mschuyler]

I can't imagine ever being put into this situation of having to download transaction data FROM a bank. I was taught to write down transactions as they happen and check the bank every month. Over the years I have caught them in several minor errors. I've had several hundred dollars of transactions that never posted, and even a deposit erroneously posted to my account. I rarely attempt to correct these errors on the theory that it would cost us both more to reconcile them than I got in "free" services. (What was with that Las Vegas trip, anyway?) But I did pursue that bad $300 deposit. I did a little invasion of privacy thing, found out who it was, google-earthed his address seeing it was no mansion and thought he might need that $300. It took forever to get through to a real person, but she bird-dogged it thru and got the guy's money back to him.

Today I have several years worth of transactions stored locally and backed up five ways against Sunday all reconciled against the bank records to no more than a month behind.

Re:OK, so this isn't an answer, but

[Anonymous Coward]

"But I did pursue that bad $300 deposit. I did a little invasion of privacy thing, found out who it was, google-earthed his address seeing it was no mansion and thought he might need that $300"

So you'd steal someone's money if, by your estimation, they don't need it?

Re:OK, so this isn't an answer, but

[mschuyler]

The fact that I went to so much trouble to get this guy's money back to him speaks to that better than I could. The fact is, I had to find him first, which was no mean feat. You'd have a hell of a time proving I "stole" it. For all intents and purposes it was given to me through no effort of my own; I simply gave it back. What you are describing is what the government does to me all the time.

Re:Behavioral problem

[mysidia]

US banks are required to keep seven years of history, so it is available to you if you really want it.

Yes, if you are willing to pay the fees. Usually an 'account research fee' and a fee per statement you want, this can be costly. These are provided to you in hard copy format, so good luck getting the information accurately back into a computer.

Or (maybe) some banks will provide you it electronically in some way, probably by mailing a CD. If you were a large enterprise, you may get your statements that way normally; it's in theory possible some banks may offer this to consumers for record retrieval.

However, even then you may have JPEGs or PDF scanned images that you will have fun OCR'ing to get into your accounting software

Not balancing your books often enough?

[Heebie]

You should be balancing your books at least once a month, so you should make downloading your history part of that. I'd also be wary of any third-party sites grabbing your info on your behalf... but I'm slightly paranoid about my data... I believe only I, and my bank, should have access to it.

Banking adverts, anyone???

[sgt_doom]

Since when in the bloody hell did /. become an advertising blog for banks and the banksters?

WTF???????

Re:Banking adverts, anyone???

[tfrayner]

How true. This story could just as easily be from Good Housekeeping as far as I'm concerned (uh, not that I'm a reader, you understand).

News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters indeed.

<token attempt at relevance>
WWW::Mechanize (or Selenium, depending on requirements) FTW.
</token attempt at relevance>

Old Slashdot would have had people chiming in with genuinely useful ideas, not this echo chamber.

Re:Banking adverts, anyone???

[Vairon]

He asked a technical question to people who might know the answer on a technical blog. I don't see the problem here. Your average non-techie probably doesn't download their bank records, import them into a mysql database and play with the data. A techie might. Finding the bank which meets our technical needs is the sort information you might have trouble finding on other forums.

If on the other hand he asked, what bank has the best savings account interest rate or what banks are compatible with Quicken, then by all means flame.

I believe that's the obvious point

[sgt_doom]

But obviously, this post is yet more free advertising for the likes of B of A, and since they happen to own the controlling interest in Monsanto, perhaps it's simply free advert for the overlords???

Lemme help ya out

[HunkirDowne]

You only check every three months? You either don't have enough money to worry about in the first place or you have lots of money and so little time to spend it that you forget to check your balance. On the off chance it's the latter, howz about you don't need to remember anything but ol' HD here. I can do it for you on a monthly basis and handle all yer details.

Bank of America

[FadedTimes]

Bank of America has 1 year of transactions available online. You can download in various formats.

WEB Connect for Quicken 2007 and above, Statement Download for Money 2007 and above, Managing Your Money - QIF file (2 digit)
, Quicken and Microsoft Money - QIF file (4 digit), Microsoft Excel Format, Printable Text Format.

In addition, some local banks may also offer up to 1 year worth of items online and various download formats. Just call them and ask for a demo or specifically ask about amount of months and what formats are available.

NYCB: 6 Months

[dcollins]

Good question. I'm old enough that I'm in the habit of downloading my info every month (i.e., part of my monthly former balance checkbook/ pay bills by hand process), so it hadn't occurred to wonder how far back it goes.

I use NYCB (New York Community Bank) here in NYC. Turns out I can download stuff from the past 6 months, and it's free. Things I'm not thrilled about with the system: (1) Got hung up when I first applied for online access because they demanded my mother's birthdate and I actually don't know it. (Friendly girls at bank laughed and said "make something up", but I'm aware of banking fine-print gotchas). (2) The online site demands a ridiculous amount of personal info, requiring a new trio of "security questions" every 3 months or so (Mom's name, dad's name, pet's name, street, college professor, best man, etc., etc. -- I just fill in random codes but now have a list 11 items long). (3) Message system spams me with sales pitch for online bill pay every 6 weeks or so.

Re:Why does Slashdot allow shit like this?

[hex0D]

You did check firehose and mod this submission down, since you find it so bad right? no? well, there you have it.

Fuck your whining.

Automated reminder

[Skapare]

Let me have your email address and I can send you a MONTHLY reminder to download your transaction CSV data. To pay for this service, all the other days I'll send you some spam.

Better yet, just give me your bank web site, account number, and password, and I'll just download the CSV for you and email it to you. I'll still need your email address, and this extended service will require two spams each day.

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:Uh, root cause?

[Myopic]

What's the problem? This man wants a certain service from his bank, and his bank declines to provide that service. This is America, where the only recourse a person has is to take their damn money somewhere else. This guy is voting with his dollars, and he deserves accolades for taking action on a service failure.

As a side point, having nothing to do with what you said, the fact that customers do not usually take the action taken by this man, and instead behave the way you proffer that he should, is the reason free-market theory is wrong. Most customers, most of the time, will do the easy thing and stick with sub-par service, out of a sense of laziness -- or however you want to phrase it, because it's easier not to act. That is a fact, and it is a fact ignored by free market theories. It is for this reason that we use sparing legislation to help achieve pro-consumer markets: because the free market would not provide optimal services.

Re:Uh, root cause?

[ftobin]

We could all use less things to have to remember in life. Furthermore, you are only considering one financial institution; I have about a dozen or so financial accounts (banks, investment accounts, credit cards, etc), and I expect this number to increase throughout my lifetime.

Re:Uh, root cause?

[DavidD_CA]

The even-scarier thing is that this nearly implies that the poster rarely (if ever) balances or checks his account.

What is he going to do if his account is ever compromised? Find out 6-9 months later? Good luck reporting THAT to the bank for fraud protection.

Re:Uh, root cause?

[geekmux]

What's the problem? This man wants a certain service from his bank, and his bank declines to provide that service. This is America, where the only recourse a person has is to take their damn money somewhere else. This guy is voting with his dollars, and he deserves accolades for taking action on a service failure.

Uh, wrong. Talk about tunnel vision.

Moving your money elsewhere is not his only choice. Here's another rather obvious question that I'll be the submitter didn't do. Ever think to just ask his current bank to change their policy? One shouldn't be too surprised in this economy what businesses are willing to do in order to keep their customers.

Also, this is not a "service failure". The bank is providing the exact same service it was yesterday, and the day before, and is the exact same service he agreed to the day he signed up for the account. Getting frustrated with your own damn oversight hardly deserves three cheers.

Re:Uh, root cause?

[Twinbee]

Well, from my point of view, banks don't deserve the customer if they can't trust them with their OWN financial transactions (probably for lawsuit reasons or something equally pathetic, shudder). It's completely idiotic. I know exactly where this guy's coming from, and it's a pig to not only have do this every x months, but to merge the numerous documents into one (for example, to allow for a year's report for tax reasons). I'm with Natwest now in the UK, and they do it fine. Barclay's didn't afair.

Re:Uh, root cause?

[Myopic]

I don't understand why you have such a severe reaction. Do you object to the word "failure"? Fine, do you prefer "shortcoming"? "Imperfection"? Whatever word you like is fine with me. The point is he wants a service and his bank doesn't offer it. Describe it in whatever way makes you happy.

Anyway, yeah, I'm sure asking a huge multinational to change their basic practices will work. Maybe you would be shocked if they declined his request, but I would be shocked if they even passed his request beyond the service department. If it helps you to be convinced, back when I was dumb enough to bank with Bank of America, I got fed up with the fees and actually did ask them to change their ways and stop charging fees. Are you shocked that they didn't do so?

I took my money elsewhere even though they were the same fees as the day I signed up. (Actually, they weren't, they changed, but that didn't affect how I felt about the situation.) This guy is doing the same, and I absolutely think you are flat out wrong: he's doing the right thing by voting with his dollars. I can't even imagine that you would honestly suggest he do otherwise. What, he should keep receiving service which doesn't meet his needs? why? because the service hasn't changed while his needs have?

Bank of America's 'my portfolio' or Mint.com

[MarcQuadra]

I use both Bank of America's online 'my portfolio' and Mint.com to track my long-term finances. Both allow you to connect to different accounts, there are built-in reports, budgeting, cool charts and graphs, and 'net worth' features.

I think BoA's service doesn't seem to reach back in time as far as Mint.

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney

[rcb1974]

I can see back at least 2 years using Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. At the end of the year I just download everything in CSV format for my taxes. The last time I did it, it was kind of hard for me to find the CSV option on the website but I found it. I think it was called "Excel" format on the site, but it was actually CSV.

First Internet Bank, 4+ Years...

[patniemeyer]

I just pulled my checking account to CSV going back to 03/2006. I'm not sure if transaction load affects how much they keep but I had 1572 transactions on that account.

I have been with FirstIB.com for over ten years and they've always been ahead of the curve.

- Pat Niemeyer

Only 3 months?

[leathered]

Is there some reason why your bank offers such a poor history of your transactions? It's not like it's hard for them to implement, several years of history for the average customer should be no more than a few hundred KB using decent compression so storage and retrieval shouldn't be an issue.

My bank, Nat West (UK) provides me with 7 years of transactions online which I can easily copy and paste into a spreadsheet. They're obliged to keep 6 years' worth and even if your bank doesn't make them available online, you can demand that they send them to you if you make a request under the Data Protection Act and pay a fee of £10.

Talk About Lazy and Capricious

[Ozymandias_KoK]

This is your make or break bank feature? Just don't be lazy and check it once a month. I do mine via Quicken about every weekend to two weeks, just 'cos. It takes about 5 minutes, and I have transactions going back to 2001. Easy peasy. (substitute your program of choice to do the same exact thing)

Alright, data pharming

[notanatheist]

So now that we know where you all bank, onto the next set of questions...

1. What password scheme do you use?
2. What hobbies do you enjoy (so those extra transactions won't be questioned)
3. Profit!!!

Make your life a LOT simpler...use QuickBooks

[CAOgdin]

Quickbooks now allows you to download transactions, semi-automatically (you have to go through them and edit them, in some cases, so you know what was the transaction was for. Then, export the data from Quickbooks for further analysis. Ever since Quickbooks added the "download transactions" functionality, my bank accounts are NEVER out of balance in my records, monthly reconciliation typically takes me 3-5 minutes/month/account, and (because I use "Memo" fields extensively), I can always search for a particular transaction.

American Express & PayPal

[slashkitty]

I'm not sure about banks, but I like the way that AMEX and paypal do it. Amex offers an end of year update, in csv or excel formats, along with a paper format. So, that's once a year, with a nice reminder. Paypal lets you run a report for an entire year, in csv form, and also allows filters for different types of transactions.

Yes, this is how banks should do it... It would be a nice feature for one that would offer it.

Re:American Express & PayPal

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad paypal is not a bank, and any money you keep in there is theirs, until they deem that it's yours. They can, and have, taken people's money and told them "eh... not our problem, really wasnt your money". They're also not FDIC insured. If they folded for whatever reason, you dont get a cent.

Re:American Express & PayPal

[ModernGeek]

Those are two of the worst financial organizations out there. Each of them have a few cute little features, but it's like making a deal with Satan himself.

Re:American Express & PayPal

[missdebbie]

I use PayPal (very often for buying on eBay). If I need to look at a transaction or contact a seller on eBay, I use PayPal's transaction history to get the information as it goes back far longer than eBay does. I bank in the UK with Cooperative bank and can access 2 years worth of statements for each of my accounts just by logging on in the normal way.

PNC is good, Schwab isn't bad, USBank sucks

[gjmcfarland]

Those are the three banks I use, and all three are different. USBank is only 90 days, Schwab is two years, and PNC goes back to January 2006 (provided you get online statements, otherwise it's three months). PNC also seems to have the most versatile export utility - it can export data in Quicken, Quickbooks, MS Money, or CSV formats, though I've never used any but CSV. Schwab only uses CSV.

Re:STFU

[omglolbah]

Personally I think this is a valid question to ask as it is easy for someone to tunnel-vision on their solution or question.

You need a Calendar app!

[erroneus]

Three months is plenty! Set up a calendar app to REMIND you to do the download. Set the reminder monthly. Do it when you pay your bills for crying out loud.

Look, I KNOW it is hard to remember stuff like that. I'm just about the worst about it having forgotten my own birthday more than twice. (And it's not like my birthday is hard to remember -- it's the first of a month!) But since I got a Blackberry and started setting calendar entries for important things and reminders, I've been much better off. I'm not using an Android phone but it's the same deal. I can only remember things when I don't need to. So I use that time to put the reminder in my calendar which then reminds me on time.

Don't look for a bank that will enable your weakness. Look for something to help against your weakness.

simpler solution

[PopeRatzo]

I have a hard time remembering to pull my transaction history down every three months

Try Google Calendar. It'll even send you an email reminder.

If you've got a longstanding relationship with a bank, and they've been doing a good job but the only problem is you can't remember to download your transaction history every three months, it seems to me it would be easier just to get a reminder every three months to press the little button that downloads the transactions.

Being with the same bank for a while can be useful when you're trying to get a loan for a house or business.

I use a small community bank, and I've been using it for a good long while. I've got personal and business accounts with them. It's now to the point where they'll give me loans or services that the big banks wouldn't even consider. They know me, they know I'm a good customer. I bet if I asked them, they'd put my transaction history on a thumb drive for me any time I want.

And you should be dealing with smaller local banks or credit unions if possible anyway. With all the consolidation, it's more important than ever that we have neighborhood banks where you can talk to the president and they actually care about your business. In my experience (I used to have my business account with Chase) a small local bank is much less likely to screw you than a big bank, and they're much more likely to help you. Just take the time to learn if they're well-capitalized before you give them your business.

I have an idea

[EmagGeek]

How about, instead of expecting the world to cater to your deficiencies, managing to take responsibility for yourself and remember to do the things you're supposed to do?

Better question

[Tragek]

Does there exist a bank yet that SUPPORTS data access? I know banksimple is coming with theirs, (http://www.banksimple.com/api/), but they are invite only still. That's probably the better solution.

pdftotxt

[Jack Greenbaum]

My bank is similar when it comes to CSV/QIF/OFX files, only 90 days of history. But they have years of online statements in pdf format. Recently I got behind on my imports, and found that pdftotext and a little perl was all I needed to create .qifs from the pdf statements. .csv should be easier.

Mint.com

[yakatz]

Give mint.com your bank info, they download and store the transaction history for you, and from there you can download it when ever you want.

I've got one

[ILuvRamen]

Anchor Bank does it but I think they're primarily only in like 2 states. But their internet banking is amazing. It's even semi-AI when it comes to determining abnormal/suspicious login behaviour. And they let you download multiple formats of history for any date range.

No kidding

[Sycraft-fu]

In particular because even if you switch, who's to say that bank doesn't change their policies? Maybe you go to a bank that currently maintains 10 years of records. However they audit things and find out nobody accesses anything older than a year. So to save space they archive everything over a year old to tape and take it offline. If you were relying on it you are now SOL and probably have to pay them a fee to get the tapes and drag up your old data (banks almost always have it and can get you a copy, it can just cost a fee to do so).

As a practical matter if you think the data is important enough to keep for years, it should also be important enough to check multiple times per month. I don't keep my data, my bank keeps a years wort of records and that is plenty for me. However I still log in probably 10 times a month to review it. Why? Because if I found an error 10 years ago, it is too late. I can't get it fixed. However if I find an error from 3 days ago, I can have that cleaned up right away.

So if you actually care about your accounts, log in often. When you do log in, nab the data. If you can't be bothered to log in more than once every few months, don't bother saving the data because it is useless. You have no need to know what you charged to your Visa in 2000. You need to know what you charged to your Visa last week.

I know it's not what you want, but...

[R.Mo_Robert]

...remembering to do it yourself is the best option. I'm not going to tell you how to manage your finances, but if you can go so much as three months without knowing any of your account history, it probably isn't that valuable to you. I recommend keeping a running ledger (JGnash2 can do it for you, and it has pre-defined queries you can run on it in ways that will far exceed a simple MySQL database unless you categorize your transations--which, given your rate of downloading, is fairly unlikely).

Or, as others have suggested, set a reminder for yourself, if nothing else.

Ummmmm

[Sycraft-fu]

Maybe because they like their bank? Seriously, if you have a Credit Union you like that's great, but people have banks they like too. This idea that banks are mean to all their customers is just false. Many of us have accounts with banks we like. Why go through the trouble of switching, if you are happy with what you have and can't see benefits to a new service?

What's more, the idea that all Credit Unions provide better service is false. Some may, but not all. In particular I've found Credit Unions often fall behind features wise. My bank was doing the online banking thing a long time ago, back before such a thing was common. At the time, no credit unions I'd seen did it. Things just weren't online then, but my bank was. These days they offer a couple features I don't see much, if any of. One is two factor authentication, I have a little authenticator card I need to log in. It was optional, of course, but I like it. The extra security is of value to me.

So really, you should use the institution that offers what you want, regardless of the agency they pay their insurance to.

What's more, you aren't tied to one company these days. In the modern era of online banking and ACH transfers, it is easy to do business with multiple institutions. I maintain my primary checking and mortgage through my main bank because I like them and I got a good mortgage rate, however my savings are not there. They don't pay much interest on savings accounts. Neither do the local Credit Unions I looked at. ING Bank currently holds my savings, as I like their interface and they pay a pretty reasonable rate. I may change that though, American Express may get to hold it instead. In that case it would be as simple as issuing an order to transfer funds. Likewise I have credit cards from a few different banks, because they offer different features, and bonuses with merchants (like American Express for Costco because that's all the take).

You don't have to have only one institution to handle your accounts if you don't want to. For me, I find that my bank does a good job handling a checking account, so they maintain that, and they offered me a good mortgage rate and a good interface for dealing with it, so they have that too. I don't pay any fees, they don't charge me to have a checking account and I have the philosophy of "Don't spend money you don't have," so I don't pay overdraft fees or the like. In the rare cases there have been problems, they've cleared them up in a hurry.

I fail to see what isn't to like.

Re:Ummmmm

[Cro Magnon]

I have my money in two banks. One is a B&M bank that I picked in prehistoric (or at least pre-online banking) times because it had branches near home & work. Also, it's been great for customer service. My other bank is ING Direct, because its interest was far higher than the B&M. I only have a tiny amount at my credit union. There's no real reason to use them. Their interest is comparable to the B&M, and they have very few ATMs.

Er, Nerd?

[Doc Ruby]

Yeah - they're a nerd. Why do you read Slashdot? For the pictures?

Re:DCU/Patelco

[BLAG-blast]

+1 for Credit Unions

I am very happy with Patelco CU (also a tech/comms credit union). Full transaction history and they doesn't try to rob me at every opportunity! It's almost like open source banks!.... almost. Maybe we could start a credit union for open source developers?

I've been with them 14+years.

Seriously?

[kenh]

Why not just try really, really hard to download your transaction history every month, then if you mis a month (or two) you can still have all your transactions?

I don't understand the mindset that can't remember to download the raw data required to do the in-depth analysis it claims it wants to do...

Wells Fargo

[oregonjohn]

I was able to download multiple years worth of banking data, though I had to click a few extra times to get the extended download. The last three months was an easy one click. I would prefer to use a credit union, but Wells Fargo holds my mortgage, credit line and an unfortunate credit card I stopped using but am still paying off. Until my income improves and I can change my loans I'm stuck with Wells Fargo

Key Bank - for what it's worth -

[CFD339]

I've been with Key for many years now. I've never had a single serious issue with them. Their online banking is excellent and allows me to download my statements as PDF in a few text formats going back for a fairly long time -- at least a year. I've had occasion to call their help line a few times over the years and have ALWAYS gotten nearly instant resolution to whatever it was.

The downside is, they do tend to be expensive in terms of fees and things -- Much less so now that I'm a little older, further along in my career, and have more than the minimum amount of money with them.

Re:Key Bank - for what it's worth -

[Anonymous Freak]

Seconded. And it's 18 months. (Just checked.)

Paper

[Sir Holo]

This is why you stick your paper statements into a folder. "Just in case." It doesn't take much space.

Or if you insist on a tech solution, many companies will PDF + OCR all of your bills and email them to you. I assume you already back up regularly...

Ten years of bank statements

[QuincyDurant]

I think banks are required to keep statements for ten years. So they have the information somewhere. You might have to do some data entry if you forget to download. I can respect forgetting to download; I forget to pay bills, deposit checks, invoice clients, and anything to do with money because I'm insufficiently into it. You want to be rich, you gotta be like Al Davis of the Raiders. They say he knows how many rolls of toilet paper there are in the locker room at any given time. Successful businesspeople NEVER forget to download data about coin; they live for the stuff. Marry a Chinese woman; they're usually pretty sharp about money. Then your only problem will be stashing a little a way so you can eat lunch like a DC lobbyist without her knowing about it. But you need somebody who loves money in your life.

Re:E*Trade Bank

[arkane1234]

I personally enjoy rudder.com, as it offers cash forecasting.
In spite of quite a long time of people requesting that from mint, they've pushed it off as a non-necessity and blew it off.
rudder.com let's you plan more, IMHO.

What bank doesn't offer this?

[MaxiumMahem]

I work in IT for small local bank (5 Branches) and our on-line service provides provides customers with the last 3 years of history in a wide variety of formats (including CSV). Considering our relatively tiny size, I'm surprised that there are any institutions that don't offer this level of service. But if your institution doesn't I second the recommendations of mint.com.

You're kidding right?

[cavebison]

It's hard to believe that here is Australia, we have superior online banking to that of the US.

Our banks here offer years' worth of historical transaction downloads. I'm with the Commonwealth Bank, they don't even mail me paper statements anymore, I can download every quarterly statement as a PDF file, or CSV, for the past several years.

I can also do searches on transactions, by combination of date, description, whether debit or credit and other things. All my bills can be paid on the bank's site, via our national "BPay" system.

And you're saying that, in the US, banks won't even let you access your own financial data? That should be a legal requirement. But the US does have a fascination with deregulation, so there you go.

Most likley

[Sycraft-fu]

Companies can charge reasonable fees to the government for complying with subpoenas. When they are against you, like you are being investigated for the wrong doing usually not, but when you are just a party who's information they need then usually they'll pay. That's one of the reasons they want an easy system for wiretaps and so on, not just that they like doing them but that phone companies can charge a reasonable fee. Well if a wiretap was all manual, like an employee manually hooking up an impedance tap to a line (it isn't but just saying) then the phone company would charge a lot more than if it is just pushing a button.

So ya, the bank probably charges them too since the process involved is probably the same: An employee has to go get in to the archives, maybe physical, maybe tape, and pull the data needed.

Mint.com

[BattleApple]

Theres mint.com which consolidates different accounts, but you have to give the site you online banking password which is kind of sketchy

Re:STFU

[KingAlanI]

Don't /.'ers often talk about comparing what the user says he wants to what the user actually wants/needs?

Chase

[KingAlanI]

My current main account is less than 90 days old, so even though the date-range function on their site is open-ended and you can download the search results as CSVs, I thus can't tell you much.
Or go low-tech and stockpile the paper statements. :)
If you want to go low-tech and high-tech at the same time, play around with OCR?

Wells Fargo

[Art3x]

Wells Fargo lets you download up to 1.5 years as a CSV (also Quicken and Microsoft Money formats, for what they're worth).

It lets you download PDFs of statements for the past 7 years.

I use the tellers anyway...

[KingAlanI]

I use the tellers anyway, especially since I like going in the branch to check for any $2 bill stockpiles. And is more convenient to ask a proper bank for change (if I'm there already), instead of $dinky_convenience_store

Go electronic

[laing]

I do business with three different banks. All of them offer me the option of waiving the paper statements. In exchange for this they agree to make my electronic statements available to me for a year. If you cannot remember to download your statements at least once per year, perhaps you should have a conservator manage your finances for you.

PDF statements + a bit of Emacs

[blais]

When I first wrote Beancount (http://furius.ca/beancount) I wanted to reconstruct up to 7 years of history for some of my accounts. I ended up using PDF statements where I could get them, and entering some of the missing statements manually. If you have PDFs, cut-n-pasting into Emacs and massaging the entries to fit Ledger/Beancount's input syntax manually is possible (though a bit time-consuming). I created macros to help the task, it wasn't crazy.

If you use a double-entry accounting system like this, it'll save you so much hassle that you won't have to remember to reconcile: you'll just *want* to reconcile more often than you actually need to. It's really cool to know where the pennies are going.

Sed is my solution.

[John Sokol]

I just did a blog post after hitting this problem.

http://johnsokol.blogspot.com/2010/09/converting-qif-to-text.html

I just want my data in something really simple format such as comma delimited.
I can copy and paste off the HTML and it's a mess. Or get my data in several formats that all require some Windows GUI based applications that you must pay for. Maybe there is something open source, but I just want a comma delimited file or just plain text even.

In my post I show a simple shell script that uses sed to flatten out a QIF file so i can use grep and awk to extract and sum data, such as how much I spent at Mc Donalds for the past year.

monthly PDF statements

[ganesh.rao]

My bank emails me transaction history in PDF once every month, quarter and year. I could enable every week too, but that seems unnecessary. Seems easy enough to do simple calculations or to generate reports as each statement has a summary. I'm in India though :P All the best finding a bank in the US who would offer you this.

Unethical but effective

[SpaghettiPattern]

You could consider bringing your money to Switzerland. Most banks there will allow you to access your transaction history for several years. They also offer Internet access and let you save on postage.

Disclaimer: IANAL, this is no legal or financial advice, in this course also consider a fanciful tar and feathers treatment from your community or even burning at the stake for being Un-American.

Re:Unethical but effective

[rackeer]

Most Swiss banks won't take Americans as clients, because they don't want to get into problems with American authorities. (I learned this from "Emergency - this book will save your life.")

Even better ... I'm credited fees from other banks

[rsborg]

Bank industry FUD. Lots of credit unions offer free ATM services to members of other credit unions.

What Bank will give you back ATM fees charged by other banks 2x a month?

My current credit union (Pacific Service CU) does. I also can deposit at some bank ATM locations and all network credit union ATMs. It's nice not having to search for a Wells Fargo or WAMU ATM.

Citibank = FULL HISTORY

[Ecuador]

Bank Of America allowed me to go back to 2 years I think, but it was such a lousy bank overall that I closed my account.
Citibank lets me download statements from my entire history, which is 6 years so far. The only "catch" is that the last 4 months are available online at any moment, if you want older ones you click the months that you want (as many as you wish) and the next business day the links to the pdfs for those months are activated and stay on for at least a day. Also citibank has always had savings rates that were very competitive (well, right now rates are down everywhere, but for when they go up again...)

Re:Citibank = FULL HISTORY

[Ecuador]

Oh, the main reason I first opened a Citi account is for Citi global transfers. If you have Citibank accounts in two different countries, you can transfer money between them INSTANTLY and for a low or no fee. For example transferring Greece -> US was free, while US -> Greece was $5, and no waiting for the next business day (or three) etc!

Re:Eh, you might be surprised

[micheas]

In all candor: does anyone know of an actual brick and mortar banking institution that I can use that is not a member of the FDIC or NCUA? I prefer to keep the government out of my life as much as possible, but sadly I doubt that there is any way to avoid these damn agencies while continuing to use a banking institution.

Almost any check cashing service, they shouldn't charge much over 5% to cash a check, and they will offer Debit cards that charge something like $2 per transaction, and will pay something like 0% but you should be able to find one that is FDIC free.

Most of these stupid laws were passed in the Great Depression when banks went out of business and nobody got paid.

The stupid FDIC is the reason you got paid, pre FDIC, you would have just had the amount sitting in bankruptcy court, hoping that a judge would release the money to you, at some point, if you could figure out how to file a claim.

The current bureaucrats have as little clue about the history and the why of the organizations, so they do some really strange things, and fall for all types of lies by financial institutions, but the post crash laws were actually fairly well done.

Use the Force luke

[DrSkwid]

NEWS FOR NERDS

any self respecting nerd should know about cron or even fucking Scheduled Tasks

get a grip, loser

regions bank

[tresstatus]

I just checked and regions bank allowed me to pull up to 540 days... if that isn't sufficient, you should really just be using a program like quicken to download things automatically for you.

Re:Even better ... I'm credited fees from other ba

[ftobin]

I get up to $6 per month of ATM charges rebated at my bank (First IB).

Pinnacle :)

[NathanTCollins]

I bank with Pinnacle. I can download my history from since I opened my account.

Not a problem. Just ask.

[wcrowe]

Perhaps my bank is unique, but all I did was ask customer service for just such a file, and they gave it to me. Yes, I actually had to get off my butt and go to the branch and ask for it (and identify myself), but I'm kind of glad that no one, including me, is able to easily download my entire banking history.

US Banks That Offer Transaction History?

[billd10]

US Bank sends you front and back copies of your checks with each statement.

Etrade

[dethkultur]

Etrade online banking stores and lets you access years of your own transaction data. Very, very good UI also, and they refund ATM fees. I've used them for around 5 years.

Only drawback is that you need to mail in physical checks that you want to deposit. Wouldn't surprise me if they allowed you to deposit via camera phone pic soon though, like some other banks.

aqbanking & OFX-compatible banks

[r_jensen11]

see: http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/OFX_Direct_Connect_Bank_Settings

It shouldn't be too difficult to set up a cron job which imports your data via aqbanking. You should be able to get by without Gnucash, but aqbanking will be your friend here.

Three

[stewbacca]

Bank of America
Chase (and before that Wamu)
Wells Fargo

I've had accounts with these three over the past 5 years and I've always been able to go back at least a year and get a .pdf (at minimum).

Why has no one said...

[kilbo]

Quicken Use it to balance your accounts monthly. You will have an infinite transaction history because it has downloaded the latest transactions. I'm no money manager but if you're not doing some kind of reconciliation of your accounts on a regular basis, then you don't seem to be as concerned about your transactions as the question appears to be. If you're doing it manually, switch to use Quicken or a similar program and do it electronically and you'll get the transaction record you're looking for.

Citibank is Clumsy but OK

[krsmav]

I use Citibank, which collects all your accounts on one page. Going back about a year is very easy, and you get PDFs of the front and back of all checks. However, you get only payee and amounts of credit card transactions. Getting older transactions requires repeatedly clicking "show more" links, and anything more than a couple of years old requires an email request, which takes between one and two days. Their tech service is very good, particularly at the first escalation level.

Re:Eh, you might be surprised

[micheas]

Last time I investigated this you really can get a prepaid debit card from your local check cashing place that is not FDIC insured, does not pay interest, and charges you a fee every time you use it.

Governmental agencies are pretty incompetent, and wasteful. That does not mean that they serve no purpose.

If it was not for that government agency you would have had the ACH deposit reversed, and then not got any money for many months.

The FDIC did not undo that transaction, your bank did, because it was no longer cleared (guaranteed). I have seen several attempts to steal money from an institution just before the SPIC took over institutions. I would assume that there are controls at the FDIC that are designed to prevent the bankers from stealing money.

Re: requiring 'hop on demand'...

[lpq]

That's baloney -- as it *requires* that he DO something whenever some date comes up and says "time for you to hop to their tune!". What about a bank that hops to your tune? Are you a customer or a puppet?

Admittedly, a good turnkey solution to download the material automatically to the customer's computer might be good, but what happens when the customer's computer crashes? Functional, complete and tested home backups are rare for home users of any sort, let alone non-tech types.

I don't see why they shouldn't be able to allow downloading of complete account history *these days*, or for as long as such information is required to be kept by federal or local law, which is probably a long time these days -- alot more than three months, that's for certain.

virtual debit cards

[vanyel]

I'm looking for one that does easy to use virtual debit cards, now that paypal stopped doing it. discover does, but they're harder to use, especially closing them after you've used them (which is the whole point, after all). Unfortunately, neither of my credit unions offers the service.

Why an US bank

[DrYak]

Why kep using a bank in USA ?
why not open an account at a Swiss bank ?
They have very good archives (if you suddenly feel like you need to run stats over the past 3 years)
and are much less eager to sell your private/personnal data to governments (due to swiss law about banks secrecy).

also, the EC / Maestro system used for debit cards works at least all over europe (in my experience) and should probably work in the USA too (haven't tested recently).

Re:Even better ... I'm credited fees from other ba

[kchrist]

Schwab Investor Checking accounts refund third-party ATM fees at the end of every month. Domestic and international, and they don't charge conversion fees when using non-US ATMs. Also, you get free checks and postage-paid envelopes for making deposits by mail. These accounts are also interest-bearing, although that doesn't count for much these days (it was 4.5% when I joined back in 2007 but dropped after the financial crash and is currently only 0.5%).