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?

You might have to pay to get the records

[failedlogic]

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

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

That's the wrong question

[A nonymous Coward]

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

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

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

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

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

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".

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: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: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.

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: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: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.

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: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: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: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

[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.