This falls under privacy/security, but mods if it doesn't fit in this forum, I'll understand if you move it.

For years I've banked with a small local bank. I signed up for online banking a little over a year ago. I have a checking and two savings there, and initially was told that all accounts would be activated online (I couldn't pick and choose). I figured they had a way around that, talked to their tech guru, and indeed got it set up so only my checking is online, not savings (made me feel more secure). I use Qkn Premiere Home & Bus 2003, suits my needs, have no reason to upgrade. The way online banking worked was I downloaded my transactions/statements with a .QIF extension to a folder on my HD. I then manually imported those .QIF files into Qkn and all was smooth sailing. (I never wanted a direct internet connection between Qkn and my bank.)

Well, my little local bank has been swallowed up by a huge bank. I tried to export my transactions the other day and couldn't do it because a) Intuit no longer supports Qkn 2003 (which I knew, but it didn't bother me) so therefore b) giant new bank's online banking only works in conjunction with newer versions of Qkn. I've never appreciated Intuit's attempts to get users to constantly upgrade because frankly, I didn't need it. What I have is sufficient for my personal and business financial use, and when I feel I'd benefit from an upgrade, that's when I do it. But annually upgrading is completely unnecessary to me. Now I feel the bank is pressing for the same thing. I talked to the bank's tech support, and was told the only way to do online banking with new bank is to upgrade Qkn. But the problem is even if I do upgrade, I can't do manual exports and imports anymore. There will be direct communication between my online account and the Qkn software on my PC. (At this point some of you are thinking 'yeah, so what's the big deal' ? ) Well, when it comes to security, I always err on the side of caution, and think of you all here and especially jerryCTX since he's been deeply involved in security. (Several years ago a different bank that handles my business account, and has large sums at any given time, was about to issue me a debit card with a PIN that they designated and kept stored 'safely in their central database out of state'. Sitting across from the bank manager's desk, I thought of jerry right at that point. It didn't feel right, I told them 'No Way' and did not pursue activating the debit card. After the fact, jerry said it was a good thing, because that PIN would have been pretty vulnerable and accessible by employees.

What I'm leading up to: do most banks operate this way today, where there's the direct link between Qkn or Money and the online account? I feel so strongly about wanting to circumvent this line of communication between financial software on my PC and my bank that I'm willing to change banks. I just don't trust it. But I don't know if I'm being realistic, either, since maybe the manual route I took up to this point was simply because I was dealing with a small bank with a less sophisticated system by today's standards?

I value your opinions, what do you think?