Desktop Alternative to FirstDirect "Internet Banking Plus"

nightvision

Dear Friends,
Simple question! As much as still like the facility and use it every day, I am getting fedup with the bugs and problems this facility has. They have not improved on their bugs for over 5 years now and the only way to resolve this is to remove all your accounts and add them back in one by one! Yes, this is official advise!

I know the product is free and I am grateful for it. I also know I don't have to use it if I don't like it. What I would like to know is - is there an alternative product for this? I have read about Yolt. But this is only available on smartphones, whereas I am not a serious smartphone user and find my desktop a lot more convenient. I would be really grateful if someone can mention any other similar product.
Thank you!

WBCPB

Lastpass free : https://www.lastpass.com/
I have been using the free version of this for many years,keeps all your banking / websites secure with just 1 password, and keeps all your info far away from any unreliable bank platform.
Regards

AirlieBird

I think money dashboard can be used on the desktop

nightvision

Thanks to both! Great suggestions! But lastpass is just a password manager. FD Internet banking plus on the other hand is a great feature which logins to all our bank accounts, mortgage accounts, savings, reward accounts, even utility accounts like talktalk etc. and gives a comprehensive page of everything, finally even showing a "net worth" figure. It is absolutely brilliant. Sounds like I am doing all their advertising for them here But it has several bugs and being free, they are not updating or correcting them for years now. I almost cannot live without it now. It is so easy. Nearly 30 accounts checked for me. Plus you can even add manual ones where there is no login, but you make an entry like "jewellery" etc.

Money Dashboard is great thanks! However, not meaning to be ungrateful and though it is great for security, it is a read only account. So it reads the account details and displays the figure. With FD IBP the advantage is it reads the account details, displays the figure, plus has a URL on the figure, so when you click it, it automatically logs you into that bank! Absolutely brilliant and so many clicks and keystrokes saved especially if you check things often.

noh

The underlying technology behind FD Internet banking plus is provided by ewise. They do offer a stand alone version, accountunity, which can be found here
https://www.ewise.com.au/accunity/aa/home.asp

It has not been updated for some years and has some bugs but probably less than the FD implementation. I have been using it for many years now.

kuratowski

My understanding is that first direct Internet Banking Plus is expected to be retired this year. HSBC are developing a replacement product using Open Banking APIs, which is currently in beta testing. If anyone knows an ETA do share

AirlieBird

kuratowski wrote: »

My understanding is that first direct Internet Banking Plus is expected to be retired this year. HSBC are developing a replacement product using Open Banking APIs, which is currently in beta testing. If anyone knows an ETA do share

As I understand it, there are two different apps. HSBC's app, "Connected Money", is ready for launch in the first half of 2018 according to a HSBC presentation in March. This will be an app to see all your accounts in one place and analyse your spend.

First Direct's app, called "artha", will be a financial marketplace and will do all what HSBC's app does but it will also analyse your spending from your connected accounts and suggest products and services to you such as utility switching services. This is in a 6 month trial, which I believe started in February.

AirlieBird

The HSBC Connected Money app mentioned above is now available to HSBC online customers with an iPhone on iOS10. It will be available to customers with Android and non HSBC customers later in the year.

https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/32074/hsbc-launches-connected-money-app

https://webforms.hsbc.co.uk/ConnectedMoney/

colsten

noh wrote: »

The underlying technology behind FD Internet banking plus is provided by ewise. They do offer a stand alone version, accountunity, which can be found here
https://www.ewise.com.au/accunity/aa/home.asp

It has not been updated for some years and has some bugs but probably less than the FD implementation. I have been using it for many years now.

Me too, it's fab (ignoring the ancient technology).

If you find bugs, why not report them to Customer Support? They invariably fix them quite swiftly. They've even added new providers when asked - although their response to such requests is a bit hit and miss, and all the main providers are supported, anyway.

Marigold123

Just to update this thread, First Direct's artha app has just finished its pilot phase and they are in the processing of pulling it from the app store. They didn't have a big uptake on it, as they made it iPhone (and maybe iPad) compatible only, and their testers weren't very enthusiastic. This kind of functionality is vital if you are someone like me, who uses a multitude of different organisations, but maybe it's just not of interest to a demographic who prefer convenience over choice, and who probably therefore hold fewer bank accounts.

I have been told Artha is NOT going to be continued, and that they are looking at putting some of the Internet Banking Plus features into their regular banking app instead. I have tried to find out whether this will include direct links to other organisations' accounts, but they don't seem to have any clear idea of where they are going with it yet.

I have downloaded the HSBC aggregator app and added a few accounts, but I don't like the layout, (mainly the fact I can only see a few accounts at a time without scrolling, though that would be the case with any app-based program), plus it also has the major disadvantage that it is read-only, and you cannot navigate to or log into any of your accounts.

The one very small plus to all this is that First Direct have said they intend to continue to support the old Internet Banking Plus. Unfortunately it can only be accessed via PC laptop or desktop, as you need the old Internet Explorer browser to run it, and my fear is that Internet Explorer will eventually become so obsolete that it will be pulled by Microsoft completely, and there will be nothing to replace the Internet Banking Plus that I like and depend on.

The problem is that there is no impetus to develop any new aggregator programs or apps with that kind of functionality. Compared to the world of app-users in general, who seem to want less detail in their lives, not more, those of us who have a large enough number of accounts to really need something like this are a minority. Basically, there's no money in it for them. There are plenty of account aggregators already out there, but to my knowledge, except for First Direct's offering and that of eWise, they are all read-only, and all focused on spending breakdowns and budgeting, rather than anything I would actually find useful.

I have used the eWise version of Internet Banking Plus for troubleshooting specific organisations, but never added enough accounts to discover whether it would work more reliably than the First Direct one. I suspect not, though, as they are exactly the same program under the hood, and most of the differences are cosmetic. I also like First Direct's interface much better and am comfortable with it.

I am thinking of future proofing my financial management by setting up a dual system, with one of the apps, probably HSBC, or a better one if I can find it, or maybe Money Dashboard, to view my balances, plus an HTML page with links to the login pages of the actual accounts. I'd have to enter the security details manually, but it's the best system I've been able to come up with for when Internet Explorer dies altogether.

Before that happens, (I hope it never does, but I'm a realist), I might start using Money Dashboard for my daily updates, and only use FD's Internet Banking Plus for logging in to individual accounts. That's still miles better than doing it manually, plus I suspect IBP works better with less load on it, as it's the updating of multiple accounts at a time that seems to cause most of the problems.

If anyone finds an aggregator that offers what Internet Banking Plus and eWise can do, please post here, but I won't hold my breath.

colsten

Marigold123 wrote: »

I have used the eWise version of Internet Banking Plus for troubleshooting specific organisations, but never added enough accounts to discover whether it would work more reliably than the First Direct one. I suspect not, though, as they are exactly the same program under the hood, and most of the differences are cosmetic. I also like First Direct's interface much better and am comfortable with it.

A bit of a moot point but eWise are the technology provider for FD IP, not the other way round. The native eWise provides many more accounts than FD have chosen to implement. eWise has obviously similar shortfalls as FD IP has but at least you can get them to fix things a little faster. It's all become rather tedious now.

Marigold123 wrote: »

If anyone finds an aggregator that offers what Internet Banking Plus and eWise can do, please post here, but I won't hold my breath.

Hear hear!