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Bank of America

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Laird Durham

24 Jun, 2015 11:55 PM

My bank, Bank of America, tells me they do not support MoneyDance -- only Quicken. But I am able to pay bills on-line much of the time. Every now and then, BoA disables that ability. I then must phone their support team, and work my way though several people to reach someone who can enable on line payment on the BoA server. This has happened 4-5 times, and, each time, I ask why they disable on line payment, and their response always is that they only support Quicken. They cannot explain why they disable on line payment except to repeat that they only support Quicken. Absurd.

BoA and MoneyDance are thus missing a really major biz opportunity. MoneyDance should negotiate with BoA to set up MoneyDance support, including subsidizing BoA training. There are many, many BoA customers who are unhappy with Quicken who would migrate to MoneyDance. There are many many customers of other banks using MoneyDance who would migrate to BoA if BofA supported MoneyDance. The present situation is absurd!!!!!!!

1. Support Staff 1 Posted by Ethan on 25 Jun, 2015 12:13 PM

   

   Hello,

   We are a relatively small company, and our ability to "negotiate" with a bank the size of Bank of America is quite limited. Usually we have a similar experience as you when talking to bank representatives, where they insist they only support Quicken. We sometimes have had better luck talking with smaller credit unions or community banks that are more responsive to their customers, but rarely have any success with explaining the situation to larger financial institutions.

   What error messages are you receiving when you cannot connect to Bank of America? Sometimes it is hard to convince them to enable one's accounts for direct connections without Quicken, but I can't think of cases where they regularly turn off someone's connections for no apparent reason.

   Ethan
   Moneydance Support

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2. 2 Posted by Laird on 25 Jun, 2015 04:42 PM

   

   This is a marketing issue, Ethan. Big banks, like the BoA, present much
   bigger opportunities for MoneyDance than smaller ones. Right? More
   prospects for you among big bank customers who hate Quicken. You get
   that, right? Small banks and S&Ls establish that MoneyDance works. It
   was a good way to start out. Now, go for the big guys.

   I do not want to use a smaller bank for a lot of reasons. I tried it.
   Didn't like it. Ditto the majority of people. That's why the banks are
   big. They have more than 500 million customers, many of whom HATE
   Quicken, who would become MoneyDance users if the big banks supported it.

   But, of course, big banks, with many times more customers than small
   banks, require support for their depositors who might use MoneyDance,
   depositors like me who want the services and convenience of big banks.
       The big banks balk at the high costs of training and maintaining
   that support staff, when they don't know if it will be worthwhile or
   not. So, they stick with Quicken, and, of course, their own in house
   bill pay system, which is very limited in what it will do compared to
   Quicken and MoneyDance.

   So how can this situation work to the advantage of both MoneyDance and
   big banks?

   There are many ways, some will prove to be more effective and successful
   than others.

   1. Offer to provide the customer support for the big bank. Be ready to
   respond on behalf of the bank to support MoneyDance customers' needs,
   which means providing live telephone and chat support, which you do not
   presently give to customers like me. BoA, for example, does give live
   telephone support for Quicken, and I can, with extraordinary effort, get
   MoneyDance problems fixed, too.*

   2. Offer to train the bank's Qicken support staff, so they can handle
   MoneyDance inquiries, and provide a small MoneyDance support staff on
   site at the bank to back up the bank's support staff. (IBM did this
   back in the day for their computers and thus became "Big Blue")

   3. Offer the big banks a marketing program, with branch promotional
   material, statement stuffers, on-line ads, etc., to draw in customers
   for checking, savings, and credit card accounts tied to MoneyDance.
   Give them a kick back for new MoneyDance signups. BoA, for example,
   has 50 million depositors; a bounty of $5 for each new MoneyDance signup
   might drop $10 million to the bank's bottom line.

   4. Promote the Big Bank in MoneyDance campaigns to shift customers from
   other big banks to YOUR Big Bank because it offers MoneyDance. If Wells
   Fargo, say, or US Bank, supported MoneyDance, I would switch from BofA.

   As I said, Ethan, this is a MARKETING issue, not a support issue. You
   need to do the research and put together the numbers that show the
   rewards to the big bank and to MoneyDance for alternative marketing
   programs.

   * The BoA support people do not know why their servers suddenly decide
   to disable bill pay for my checking account. They do know how to enable
   bill pay for me, and do so when I finally get through to a supervisor.
   Then everything is fine for a month or for several months. This has
   happened five times in two years. They do not know why it stops
   working, why bill pay is suddenly disabled at the server. They don't
   want to look into the problem because the bank's position is that it
   does not support MoneyDance.

   So the solution is a MARKETING one. There is no TECHNICAL reason
   MoneyDance bill pay does not work at BoA. It does work. I make it work
   for me. It is a pain but I would rather put up with it than use
   Quicken. And therein is your business development opportunity.

   Find someone at MoneyDance in Marketing or Management who can understand
   this.

   Laird

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3. System closed this discussion on 19 Mar, 2016 04:56 AM.