Experiences Sharing Spouses Financial Accounts

[mrfeh]

Before the age of multi-factor authentication schemes, it was easy to enable both my wife and I to have concurrent, unrestricted abilities on each other's financial accounts. But now there are things that make that harder:

* Using one cell phone number as an SMS second factor

* "Your voice is your password" voice print technology

Before, when trying online access, I could log in as her with user ID password, and complete the email loop (as long as I had the email in the profile configured with one I could get into), or with voice access, I'd just say I was her (they didn't ask about a male sounding voice).

Now, I'm running into more issues, and having to have a realtime exchange of SMS codes or drag my wife down into my office when I'm trying to do some things.

How do you manage this? I haven't tried to add myself to her account as a full access user because I figured I'd be limited. Has that worked for you? Which financial institutions? Was it / is it easy? Any "gotchas"?

We use Authy for 2FA, which allows you to share keys across phones, so we both have 2FA for each others accounts.

Where SMS is still used, we have a shared google voice phone number.

ETA - shared password manager also

 

[CaptTom]

Just now when I saw this thread title I didn't notice those last two words, "financial accounts."

Sort of gave me the wrong impression about what we were talking about here...

 

[ShokWaveRider]

Not one issue for nearly 40 years.

 

[sengsational]

Not one issue for nearly 40 years.

Because you never transact on each other's accounts or because you have a way to do it that generates zero issues?

The first 35 years couldn't be a problem because they didn't force 2FA.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

Because you never transact on each other's accounts or because you have a way to do it that generates zero issues?

The first 35 years couldn't be a problem because they didn't force 2FA.

Nope, I deal with all our accounts. I just use her phone or email for 2fa. Saying that I rarely need to access her individual accounts as I have access to them on our joint brokerage account and authority to do transactions on her behalf for IRAs, which I also have access to. BTW she also has access to mine, but rarely ever needs to. We have a password manager that we also have joint access to if needed. Again it has never been an issue in almost 40 years and I do not anticipate it ever being an issue.

I check them every month to update our MoneyDance Financial Package. I had to take a small distribution for Taxes from her IRA once, she did have to sign a form, but that was not an issue as we still live under the same roof. I think if one has a good trusting relationship with one's spouse, it should never be an issue.

 

[ArmchairMillionaire]

Before the age of multi-factor authentication schemes, it was easy to enable both my wife and I to have concurrent, unrestricted abilities on each other's financial accounts. But now there are things that make that harder:

* Using one cell phone number as an SMS second factor

* "Your voice is your password" voice print technology

How do you manage this? I haven't tried to add myself to her account as a full access user because I figured I'd be limited. Has that worked for you? Which financial institutions? Was it / is it easy? Any "gotchas"?

Since neither of us use a mobile phone, it's fairly easy for us, as I use my e-mail address for both my accounts and her accounts and we have a land-line for the times they have to call you with a 6-digit access code.
I also use the aggregation services on both Vanguard and John Hancock, so I can see all the balances (and compare the two) when I log on to my accounts.

 

[sengsational]

Since neither of us use a mobile phone, it's fairly easy for us, as I use my e-mail address for both my accounts and her accounts and we have a land-line for the times they have to call you with a 6-digit access code.

Thank for mentioning the "no cell phone" strategy...it gives me a chance to complain about Fidelity

I kept my wife's Fidelity account "land line only" to avoid the problem of SMS loop with a phone that might not be available. But they arbitrarily changed the landline designation to cell phone. So for years, if they forced a second factor on me, I'd answer the landline, type the code, and be on my way. Or complete the loop via email, again, no problem.

Because Fidelity changed the designation of the landline to mobile, they now send the SMS to the landline, and it goes into the ether. And they don't offer the email alternative (this is using the Fidelity app on Android). So a few days ago, I called, explained the problem (narrowly...SMS sent to landline and that I couldn't find a way to change it back to landline). The rep said they'd change it to landline so there would be a call instead of a text. But we tried again just now, and it still is trying to send a text message!

Fidelity swapping the landline designation is actually what moved me to ask how our members manage the shared account thing. I Iike the shared Google voice solution.

 

[Souschef]

Both being widowed, all our accounts are separate. I use my cell for all 2FA on all accounts. I also have all her passwords to her accounts and e-mails.

 

[ArmchairMillionaire]

Thank for mentioning the "no cell phone" strategy...it gives me a chance to complain about Fidelity

I kept my wife's Fidelity account "land line only" to avoid the problem of SMS loop with a phone that might not be available. But they arbitrarily changed the landline designation to cell phone. So for years, if they forced a second factor on me, I'd answer the landline, type the code, and be on my way. Or complete the loop via email, again, no problem.

Because Fidelity changed the designation of the landline to mobile, they now send the SMS to the landline, and it goes into the ether. And they don't offer the email alternative (this is using the Fidelity app on Android). So a few days ago, I called, explained the problem (narrowly...SMS sent to landline and that I couldn't find a way to change it back to landline). The rep said they'd change it to landline so there would be a call instead of a text. But we tried again just now, and it still is trying to send a text message!

Fidelity swapping the landline designation is actually what moved me to ask how our members manage the shared account thing. I Iike the shared Google voice solution.

Vanguard tried that same cr*p with us, so I had to call their customer service people and explain to them that we didn't use mobile phones.

I discovered a problem when using a land-line number and aggregation services, though. My JH aggregator, called "Personal Finance Organizer", apparently likes to update the accounts with each new day. I cannot control when they do these updates, and we were quite annoyed when we started getting phone calls at 12:02 a.m. multiple days in a row with a 6-digit code to access my Health Savings Account. That took some time to get fixed, but it hasn't happened again. Yet.

 

[Healthy Lifestyle]

At Fidelity, my wife and I have IRAs and also have a joint brokerage account. We each have our own log-in, but when we log in it gives us the option to send the sms to 2 different phone numbers (so I can log into her account and have it send the code to my phone or hers).

Vanguard allows this option as well.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

Another thing we do is have what we joking call the "Death List". If either one (or both) of us cark it our executor has the location of it. My wife maintains it and we both have access to it. It lists all brokerages and accounts which we both have access to. We have no accounts that are not accessible (and authorized) by both of us.

 

[brett]

Both of us have access to our joint and singular investment accounts. And our current account.

As above...we share the verification codes when necessary. Which is seldom.

It has never been an issue. No more effort than.... please check you messages or email for a 2FA code.

Neither of us keep any financial data on our phones, store any credit card or account details or action any financial transactions via our smart phones.

 

[sengsational]

Most of the solutions work great if you're in the same house at the same time. That's the case for us.

If they have things you can't do online and have voice print tech implemented, and we're not in the same house, I'll have to figure out how to do a three way call. But that's not something I'm going to worry about now.

 

[target2019]

I think I read a dozen solutions above. We use 2 or 3 or 4 of those, and look for flexibility. We're not boxed in with any of the 2FA so far. It may be that I'm just used to dealing with this, and finding solutions on the go as I need them.

This past year we got forced in to a google authenticator app for some genealogy services. Whatever works...you have to comply or change business.

Since the service provider can always change their procedure, there's no way to guarantee that my process today will remain static.

We're not using voice-print technology anywhere, so I'm not aware of what feature(s) it provides that I can't can't get done online.

 

[bbqcoder]

We handle this with a shared Google voice number. We set it up so that we both get an email (and a notification on our phone) when the number gets a text. It's nice too because we both see it and can ask "Hey, was that you accessing XYZ bank earlier?".

Yeah, I do the same too for sites that don’t allow the use of Authenticator apps and only a single SMS. Fortunately these sites are rare.

We use multiple solutions. 1Password family for all accounts. Security keys on computers where possible. Choice of phones or email where possible. We're always in touch with phone and Telegram throughout the day.

I usually access all of our accounts on the 1st of each month, and we're usually together.

I’m a big 1Password fan. Like their ability to generate OTP codes. So for finance accounts, they’re stored in the site entry and put into a shared folder for both of us to access.

We use Authy for 2FA, which allows you to share keys across phones, so we both have 2FA for each others accounts.

I’m a former user of Authy but dropped them when they discontinued the desktop app support. I probably could run the app on my Mac but I don’t think there’s support for windows. I switched to using 1Passsword instead.

Thank for mentioning the "no cell phone" strategy...it gives me a chance to complain about Fidelity

I kept my wife's Fidelity account "land line only" to avoid the problem of SMS loop with a phone that might not be available.

For Fidelity, they do have the option of using the Symantec VIP access to generate security codes so you can login that way. I run a program to mimic this app so that I’m able to use 1Password or some other Authenticator apps instead. It only needs to be done once when you first configure this for your account. See this post for info on how this is done. There’sa Python program that you use for this.

Reversing the Symantec VIP Access Provisioning Protocol — Cyrozap's Tech Projects

www.cyrozap.com

we were quite annoyed when we started getting phone calls at 12:02 a.m. multiple days in a row with a 6-digit code to access my Health Savings Account. That took some time to get fixed, but it hasn't happened again. Yet.

Silent mode on the iphone helps with this. My phone knows my sleeping hours so it never rings during certain hours unless it’s from certain people. Plus I have the ringer off and vibrate only.

 

[mrfeh]

For Fidelity, they do have the option of using the Symantec VIP access to generate security codes so you can login that way. I run a program to mimic this app so that I’m able to use 1Password or some other Authenticator apps instead. It only needs to be done once when you first configure this for your account. See this post for info on how this is done. There’sa Python program that you use for this.

Fido now works with authenticator apps directly. No need to do this any more.

 

[audreyh1]

At Fidelity we each have trading authority on the other’s accounts and can see all transactions, so it’s very rare that we need to use the other’s credentials.

 

[ArmchairMillionaire]

Silent mode on the iphone helps with this. My phone knows my sleeping hours so it never rings during certain hours unless it’s from certain people. Plus I have the ringer off and vibrate only.

Unfortunately, our phones don't have a silent mode.

 

[bbqcoder]

Fido now works with authenticator apps directly. No need to do this any more.

Good to know this. I had setup this years ago when that option didn’t exist

 

[sengsational]

Fido now works with authenticator apps directly. No need to do this any more.

When I called and confirmed that the mobile app did not have the ability to call the landline to provide the code via audio, they told me about the authenticator app support. I installed Aegis, an open source authenticator app, available on F-Droid repository. It's a little more painful to log in from the desktop, but does honor an earlier cookie so it doesn't nag you every time.

 

[rk911]

All of our taxable accounts except for the IRAs are jointly held and we each are authorized to discuss the IRAs with the custodian and are each others benrficiaries.

 

[brett]

We now have separate HISA's with an on line bank. Not a big issue. When I want to access her account she just has to provide me with the six digit code that was sent to her. The investment accounts are different..I have access to all of them.

Ditto for the credit cards in her name.

We have no issue. It is a small inconvenience for a second level of security.

I am generally the only person who accesses any of the accounts, mine, hers, or ours.

 

[NeilDH]

I’ve been able to add my mobile number to DW’s accounts in order to get access, and to my client’s Schwab account, actually (though we have to get around to making me an authorized user). The one place that gives me trouble is Chase, which doesn’t like a mobile number being attached to more than one online login.

 

[Lewis Clark]

The one place that gives me trouble is Chase, which doesn’t like a mobile number being attached to more than one online login.

I had the same problem at first. What I did was create a second profile for our Chase account. One profile for me and one profile for my wife. Now we can each log in with our own profile access.