got an upsetting letter from my credit card company last weekend. The letter, from First USA, informed me that the way I do my on-line banking was about to change.
The change really started about a year ago, when First USA bought First Card, the company that sponsors my Mileage Plus MasterCard. I've had my Mileage Plus First Card for more than three years. The best thing about the card, besides that I get a frequent-flier mile for every dollar I spend, is that I can automatically download a record of my purchases into Quicken. Since then, I've used the credit card for all my expenses, and I've gotten an uncannily accurate picture of where I spend my money.
Quicken's One Step Update feature is pretty cool. Every time I start up my copy of Quicken 2000, the program automatically contacts these companies over the Internet, checks to see whether I have new pending transactions, and automatically downloads them into my register.
Alas, I'm in the minority. According to David Webster, a spokesperson with First USA, only a tiny number of the company's customers use Quicken's One Step Update. First USA's Web site is far more popular; more than 500,000 customers have registered to review their First USA credit card accounts over the Web. So First USA has discontinued One Step Update in favor of making information available over the Web.
Web-based home banking actually lets companies such as First USA offer far more services to consumers than they ever could do through Quicken's proprietary interface. As with Quicken, the First USA Web site shows me the date of each charge, the amount, the name of the merchant, and a category of the transaction. But I also can see ''authorizations'' - that is, the amount of credit that has been reserved on my credit-card pending a settlement. I can even click on a link and dispute a charge, all without having to pick up the phone or write a letter.
Other financial institutions also are bypassing direct integration with Quicken and moving straight to the Web. In the process, they are offering new services and features to their customers. My bank, the Cambridge Trust Company, lets me use their Web-based bank statement to pay bills with electronic payments and balance my checking account statement on line. The Web-based system gives customers who aren't using Quicken, which is the majority, an easy way to manage their finances.
A friend of mine is so enamored with his bank's on-line services that he has decided to move to a ''paperless statement.'' Instead of getting his credit card statement in the mail each month, he gets an e-mail message telling him that the statement is ready to download. He then clicks to the Web site, downloads the statement, and saves it on his hard drive. A few more keystrokes and he has programmed in a payment on the credit-card bill from his on-line checking account.
For people who are already using Quicken, these Web-based systems can be something of a step backward - or they can be a step forward. It all depends on how the bank sets up its Web site.
Most financial companies that have set up Web-based services let customers export their transactions into a file. The data in this file then can be imported into Quicken. It used to be that the only file format that Quicken supported was something called a ''QIF File.'' QIF stands for Quicken Interchange Format; it's a simple technique that Intuit created years ago for moving data in and out of the Quicken application. But starting with Quicken '99, Intuit created a new file format called Web Connect. The reason that the letter from First USA upset me so much was that the letter said that I would have to download my statement using QIF. As it turns out, the letter was wrong: First USA supports the Web Connect standard.
In general, importing transactions with QIF is something that consumers should avoid. Using QIF, it's all too easy to import your transactions into the wrong Quicken register, or to get double transactions in your register accidentally. Once when I imported a QIF file from Cambridge Trust I had to spend more than an hour trying to undo the damage.
Quicken's Web Connect system, on the other hand, works just as well as the company's One Step Update. You click a button and Quicken transfers the data into the correct register and lets you compare these numbers with the rest of your statement. If your financial institution doesn't offer Web Connect, tell them that they should.
One lingering fear I have regarding this is that some crook or identity thief might get access to my account over the Internet and start spending my money. Alas, this is a problem many financial institutions need to address. At Cambridge Trust, for instance, I had to get a paper application, send it in, and then wait for the company to send my user name and password by US mail. Unfortunately, when I got the letter, I discovered the bank had used my Social Security number as my user name. That's not very secure, since there are many ways to discover a Social Security number.
First USA, on the other hand, allowed me to set up my Web account electronically. All I had to do was to provide my credit-card number, my birthday, my mother's maiden name, and the zip code where my credit card statements are sent. The whole process took less than three minutes.
Technology writer Simson L. Garfinkel can be reached at plugged-in@simson.net.
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