Wishlist: Bank transaction RSS feed
Technology 10/28/2004 |Just something that popped into my head.
I want a daily update from my bank via authenticated RSS feed.
Something like:
Account holder: Michael Hanscom
Today’s transactions:
Account: XXXXXXXThank you for banking with Your Local Bank! Promotional copy, yadda yadda, whatever.
Party Amount Balance Broadway QFC ($5.78) $385.73 Pike & Broadway ATM ($20.00) $365.73 Direct Deposit $783.56 $1149.29
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p>Are there any banks (especially in the Seattle area) that offer this as part of their online banking? If not, any idea how this could be suggested or promoted? Alternatively, are there any reasons why this couldn’t be managed securely?
[See also: Just dropping in | I hate it when I’m stupid | Links for September 25th through September 26th | Orkut | Made it to Seattle ]
5 Responses to “Wishlist: Bank transaction RSS feed”
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jer@nyquil.org
Bryan
Michael Hanscom
Prairie
October 28th, 2004 at 10:05 am
Nice idea. My bank (in the UK) sends me an SMS to my mobile phone every day and a weekly statement for each of my accounts.
If a bank provides a downloadable file (like mine does, for Quicken) it should be possible to do an RSS but the reason I can’t automate the file download (I need to enter random characters from a password) will surely prevent getting an RSS?
October 28th, 2004 at 10:38 am
Great idea. But from my previous experience on online banking development with a major international bank all the required components/standards will have to be rectified and stable, with major vendors (MS, Sun, BEA, IBM, etc.) providing toolkits before the banks will look into it. RSS, not being a W3C standard will be difficult to get the bank technology people to buy into. Atom via SOAP is a possible route but with Atom and the WS-X alphabet standards still in development it will be awhile as well it gets accepted.
October 28th, 2004 at 2:09 pm
Interestingly, I had this exact same idea yesterday while I was anxiously waiting for a transaction to go through. Unfortunately, for the reasons Alex indicates, I’m not too optimistic about it happening any time soon.
October 28th, 2004 at 6:46 pm
Hmmmm.
Screenscraping to the rescue? If your bank lets you log in and view transactions, surely it can be automated somehow. (Unless, as with Jonathan, your bank makes sure that you’re physically there when you log in..)
I really need to get around to learning how to code such bots and things, it can be mighty useful.
October 29th, 2004 at 7:23 am
Bummer — but I can’t say that I’m entirely surprised. Still, it’d be so handy if it could ever be worked out.
Probably theoretically possible, but like you, I have no idea how to go about building such a thing.