Linking accounts to Bank

[Beststash]

What is your opinion about linking your various account to one location?

In the past I used Fidelity FullView to do this but it has been over a decade since I updated the info and when I check today no longer there.

Like most people I have several institutions involved with my finances. I have been keeping the info on a spreadsheet but it is time-consuming and not really the ideal situation.

I've been considering linking everything - brokerage,IRAs, credit unions, credit cards, etc. to my local bank. I played a little with Fidelity but they didn't seem to be able to connect to Penfed unless I do it manually and the local bank can do so easily The bank uses what they call MX Technology.

So is there risk to this. Is this putting too much info out there?

I'm not talking setting up EFTs for transfers - I have already done that - the way I understand it this is just for balances - what I do on my spreadsheet but automatically updates.

Any opinions or has this been discussed already?

 

[audreyh1]

I use Quicken to track all my accounts plus track scheduled payments, etc. I don’t use an online tracker. I’ve never used Fidelity Full View.

For Quicken I download transactions from various accounts so that’s automated, a few I manually enter. I reconcile statements monthly, so it’s up to date. I run an ancient version of Quicken so some things no longer work but I’ve found workarounds.

I was able to connect to PenFed from Fidelity long ago for transferring funds, no problem.

I do have Fidelity connected to most of my bank and CU institutions, but that’s for moving money around not for tracking. I always initiate transfers from Fidelity. Most of my other institutions don’t have account info of external accounts.

 

[cathy63]

... The bank uses what they call MX Technology...

MX Technologies is a 3rd party company that banks use to provide aggregation services to their clients. https://www.mx.com/ They are similar to Plaid and Yodlee. Quicken also does this, but they embed their solution in their own product rather than selling it to other companies. As far as I know, all of these are reputable businesses, but none of them are public companies, so the info on what they do and how they do it and what risks they are taking is not something you can find in SEC filings.

So is there risk to this. Is this putting too much info out there?

Yes, there's always a risk when you are giving your passwords to someone else. If they store them and they get hacked, then someone else has your login credentials. I'm sure anything they store is encrypted, but nothing is 100% secure. Hopefully they avoid storing passwords by using tokenization algorithms and whitelisting, but not all financial providers support these options, so they are either storing some passwords or there are some institutions they can't aggregate from. There's also the initial setup process for each institution where there's some risk of eavesdropping by hackers.

For myself, I use Quicken and I do give them my passwords because the convenience of the aggregation is worth the relatively small risk. I have 2 factor auth setup on all accounts where I keep actual money so hopefully I would know pretty quickly if someone did try to login. I also have overdraft protection turned off on all accounts so no money is moving automatically except for scheduled transfers.

 

[jazz4cash]

I use Fidelity GPS to track manually. I do not use Full View or any service that has access across institutions. Nearly everything is at Fidelity but I manually update balances quarterly from 6 outside accounts. Not hard at all and I’m closing two of these in the near future.

 

[target2019]

What is your opinion about linking your various account to one location?

In the past I used Fidelity FullView to do this but it has been over a decade since I updated the info and when I check today no longer there.

Like most people I have several institutions involved with my finances. I have been keeping the info on a spreadsheet but it is time-consuming and not really the ideal situation.

I've been considering linking everything - brokerage,IRAs, credit unions, credit cards, etc. to my local bank. I played a little with Fidelity but they didn't seem to be able to connect to Penfed unless I do it manually and the local bank can do so easily The bank uses what they call MX Technology.

So is there risk to this. Is this putting too much info out there?

I'm not talking setting up EFTs for transfers - I have already done that - the way I understand it this is just for balances - what I do on my spreadsheet but automatically updates.

Any opinions or has this been discussed already?

Opinons on this are all over the forum. Since 1990 I've been keeping monthly totals of various accounts, and also monitoring asset allocation...

In that period many services have been shown to be vulnerable to threats in some way. For financial accounts held with the big guys I think the track record is pretty good. When it comes to aggregation services, I'm not so agreeable to that. I know that many use downloads to quicken or whatever, but I'm just not interested in that level of detail. So exposing my username and password to a 3rd party at this time does not interest me.

If I forego logging in once a month, I might miss an important notification. That's my opinion.

 

[Car-Guy]

Ten years ago, I may have considered something to track/link all my accounts. Not so today. Now I just have three financial institutions to deal with. Takes me about 5 minutes each month to log on and add stuff up.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

I figure I trust Fidelity with most of my money, so if there's any kind of breach I'd be more worried about my accounts there than the third-party account access for Full View.

 

[audreyh1]

My downloads to Quicken involve downloading a QFX file from a financial institution, and most support this, and then importing the file into Quicken. So Quicken has no account credentials.

 

[TheWizard]

I have my checking account at my local credit union. This is my only "bank".

I have my two credit cards linked to my checking account. I initiate payment of my CC balances twice a month using their apps on my smartphone.

My annuity and RMD income from TIAA transfers automatically into my checking account monthly. This is a one-way street; I don't move money into my TIAA accounts anymore.

My Vanguard taxable account links to my checking account also. Most of my transactions move excess money from checking into my settlement fund, but infrequently I withdraw money from that fund, all using the Vanguard app on my smartphone.

And of course my SS benefit hits my checking account monthly, always a few days before the scheduled Wednesday.

All of these links and transfers work perfectly.

And I have zero need to consolidate balance info anywhere. I can check whatever I want on my phone anytime...

 

[Beststash]

I was able to connect to PenFed from Fidelity long ago for transferring funds, no problem.

I do have Fidelity connected to most of my bank and CU institutions, but that’s for moving money around not for tracking. I always initiate transfers from Fidelity. Most of my other institutions don’t have account info of external accounts.

That is exactly what I have now. And yes, I have found that initiating the transfer from Fidelity it shows up pending, even before the transaction actually occurs.

I'm mostly considering this in terms of asset allocation and totals. I have so many accounts it is getting easy to forget (Treasury Direct, I always forget )

 

[Beststash]

MX Technologies is a 3rd party company that banks use to provide aggregation services to their clients. https://www.mx.com/ They are similar to Plaid and Yodlee. Quicken also does this, but they embed their solution in their own product rather than selling it to other companies. As far as I know, all of these are reputable businesses, but none of them are public companies, so the info on what they do and how they do it and what risks they are taking is not something you can find in SEC filings.



Yes, there's always a risk when you are giving your passwords to someone else. If they store them and they get hacked, then someone else has your login credentials. I'm sure anything they store is encrypted, but nothing is 100% secure. Hopefully they avoid storing passwords by using tokenization algorithms and whitelisting, but not all financial providers support these options, so they are either storing some passwords or there are some institutions they can't aggregate from. There's also the initial setup process for each institution where there's some risk of eavesdropping by hackers.

For myself, I use Quicken and I do give them my passwords because the convenience of the aggregation is worth the relatively small risk. I have 2 factor auth setup on all accounts where I keep actual money so hopefully I would know pretty quickly if someone did try to login. I also have overdraft protection turned off on all accounts so no money is moving automatically except for scheduled transfers.

Thank You - Good Info.

 

[pb4uski]

I have the vast majority of my accounts linked to Quicken. I can do a One-Step Update and everything that I care about gets updated at once.

 

[GrayHare]

I don't do it. I don't care for the national security risk. Putting lots of data in one or a few places makes it easier for a bad actor to scoop up then use to trigger economic chaos. It's true that has not been done on a large scale, yet.

 

[mrfeh]

Yes, there's always a risk when you are giving your passwords to someone else. If they store them and they get hacked, then someone else has your login credentials. I'm sure anything they store is encrypted, but nothing is 100% secure. Hopefully they avoid storing passwords by using tokenization algorithms and whitelisting, but not all financial providers support these options, so they are either storing some passwords or there are some institutions they can't aggregate from. There's also the initial setup process for each institution where there's some risk of eavesdropping by hackers.

+1

I used a couple aggregators for many years, and just recently decided to stop. Although unlikely, if your credentials were somehow exposed, the brokerage would not be responsible for making you whole. If you give your credentials to another party and your account gets emptied, the brokerage can say "too bad, so sad".

I still use aggregators for tracking spending (ie. checking accounts and credit cards), but I no longer give credentials out for accounts with lots of $ in them (ie. brokerage).

I use a spread sheet and the M* online portfolio tracker to track investments.

 

[frank05]

I linked all my accounts in Schwab. Easy way to quickly see my financial picture. Sometimes an account will not update for a day or two. If updates stop for a week I reenter the login data for that account.

I stopped using Quicken for this since I it was cumbersome to manually enter the data.