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How do I evaluate a new bank or credit union's online system?

I use quicken and I currently have problems like unexpected down time from the bank or quicken saying there are no more transactions even though the bank's web site says other wise.

How can I evaluate another bank's online services without switching to them for three months?

They all advertise almost the same services so advertising or marketing information is not what I am looking for.

Alex B
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    +1 This is a rather useful question to those of us who like to automate our financial tracking. It seems like the only way to even be sure that a bank offers true Quicken connectivity is to own Quicken and try to connect. I've opened accounts that advertised Quicken connectivity only to find out afterwards that the connectivity really amounts to logging in manually and downloading the update file. – jprete Nov 05 '11 at 22:32

2 Answers2

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I think that other than trying yourself the best way is to ask people who actually use it (either someone you know or through online reviews).

Also, asking questions through email, if supported by the bank, is a good way as they will not write down that they support stuff that they don't support (they may sometimes say that verbally, on the phone or in the branch, either because they don't know or just want to convince you to open account no matter what).

littleadv
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GNUCash keeps a list of supported banks, and for a while, OFXBlog was tracking new sites. Some sites don't support that though and thus rely on webscraping. I also figure if Mint.com tracks accounts for a given bank, it's clearly possible, even if I don't use Mint personally.

jldugger
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