Free/open source Unix software that pulls info from all my banks/brokers/credit cards?
Gnucash uses aqbanking, so I'd suggest looking at aqbanking to see if it will do what you want. It seems to be actively developed (as of 26.2.2011), but the main page is in German and my German is a bit rusty... You might also try asking on the gnucash-users list. "As far as I can tell there are no ""out-of-the-box"" solutions for this.  Nor will Moneydance or GnuCash give you the full solution you are looking for.  I imaging people don't write a well-known, open-source, tool that will do this for fear of the negative uses it could have, and the resulting liability.  You can roll-you-own using the following obscure tools that approximate a solution: First download the bank's CSV information: http://baruch.ev-en.org/proj/gnucash.html That guy did it with a perl script that you can modify. Then convert the result to OFX for use elsewhere: http://allmybrain.com/2009/02/04/converting-financial-csv-data-to-ofx-or-qif-import-files/" "Moneydance is a commercial application that is cross-platform. Written in Java, they run and are supported on Windows, Mac and Linux. They integrate with many financial institutions and for those that it cannot, you can import a locally downloaded file. I have used it for several years on my Mac, but have no company affiliation. I'm not sure if by saying ""Unix"" software you meant FOSS of some kind, but good luck in any case." Buxfer is a personal-finance web app which you might like.  It's not open-source.  But at least none of your complaints about financeworks.intuit.com apply to Buxfer. Buxfer offers a piece of software you can download to your own PC, called Firebux.  This macro-recording software provides automation that helps you download statements and upload them to Buxfer.  So you never have to give Buxfer any of your bank or brokerage usernames or passwords. Buxfer and Firebux are both free of charge. Wesabe, another personal-finance web app, also used to offer data-uploader software, but Wesabe has now gone out of business.
So, my questions: Are payment cards provide sufficient security now? Yes. If so, how is that achieved? Depending on your country's laws, of course. In most places (The US and EU, notably), there's a statutory limit on liability for fraudulent charges. For transactions when the card is not present, proving that the charge is not fraudulent is merchants' task. Why do online services ask for all those CVV codes and expiration date   information, if, whenever you poke the card out of your wallet, all of   its information becomes visible to everyone in the close area? What   can I do to secure myself? Is it? Try to copy someones credit card info next time you're in the line at the local grocery store. BTW, some of my friends tend to rub off the CVV code from the cards   they get immediately after receiving; nevertheless, it could have   already been written down by some unfair bank employee. Rubbish. The true answer is it depends because  it is up to the credit card issuer to follow the right path when issuing a replacement credit card. http://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/will-replacement-card-hurt-my-score.aspx Typically, issuers will transfer the account history to the new trade line, says Barry Paperno, the consumer operations manager at FICO, the creator of the FICO scoring formula. The new account should have the old open date, so you should retain your payment history, he says. The credit limit and balance should also stay the same. http://blog.credit.com/2014/02/lost-or-stolen-credit-card-hurt-your-credit-scores-76724/ How Issuers Report Replacement Cards We asked the major card issuers how they report replacement cards to credit reporting agencies: American Express: The new card has the same open date and “Member Since” year as the previous card. The balance on the old account number is transferred to the new account number. All payment history transfers over. Bank of America: All transactions and account history are transferred to the new account number when there is a card replacement or renewal. Capital One: The new account number with all the original account data (original open date, etc.) is reported along with a notification to the bureaus that the new account number is replacing the old.  The two tradelines can then be ‘merged’ into one, so that all the applicable payment history, balance, etc. is now under the new account number. Chase: The original tradeline does not change. The history on the account remains, just the account number field is updated with the new account number. There is no “new” tradeline in this scenario. I have never been requested to send a voter registration card. What on earth for? It sounds as if you don't have a credit report available on your SSN, so they're having trouble verifying your identity. But the most I have ever been requested to send to an online bank (ING Direct in my case, and I too didn't have a credit report yet when I opened an account there) was the Social Security card and a driver's license.  Once you have a proper credit report information (a couple of loans and a couple of address changes), they can compile the data into a set of verification questions, which would be used to verify your identity. If you do send stuff - make sure to fax it to their 800 fax number, do not send via email. It may also be that their user database is compromised and someone is phishing you. Make sure they're the ones asking for info (and getting it) by calling their phone number (take the number from their web-site, not the emails). "The biggest (but still temporary) ding you'll see on your credit score from opening a new account is from the low average (and low minimum) account age.  This will have a stronger effect than the hard pull of the credit report, which is still a factor (but not much of one if you only have 1-2 pulls in the past couple years).   Having a lower average account age increases your risk to lenders.  Your average will go up by one month per month, and each time you open an account it will suffer a drop proportional to the number of accounts you already had open before.  So if you want to have a more ""solid"" credit score that stays strong in the face of new accounts in the future, it's better to open a few more accounts now (assuming you can ride out the temporary drop in score and aren't planning to go e.g. mortgage-shopping in the very near future).   Having an additional line of credit will also likely cause your credit card utilization (total balance / total credit limit, expressed as a percentage) to decrease, which would tend to increase your credit score, counteracting the age factor, unless your utilization is already extremely low (which it probably is given your monthly account payoffs).  There are various credit score simulators out there, from places that show you your credit score, and you can put in a hypothetical new card account to see the immediate likely impact for your particular situation.   You identified other costs, such as risk of fraud and fees.  You should check your statements once in a while even if you're not using the card, just to make sure no one else is.  The bit of additional time required for this is a nonzero cost of having an open credit card account.  So is the additional hassle of dealing with having the card stolen etc. if you carry it in your wallet and your wallet's stolen. If you have an account with zero activity for some number of years, the bank may close it automatically and that can reflect negatively on a credit report (as a bank closure of the account, the reason is often obscured).  Check your terms and conditions and/or have some activity every so often to prevent this from happening.   Some of the otherwise most attractive credit cards have monthly or annual fees, which will cost you, and you won't want to close those because it would then reduce your credit score (e.g. by reducing the total available credit and increasing your utilization percentage) - so the solution is don't apply for credit cards that have monthly/annual fees.  There are plenty of good cards without those fees. With a credit score that high, you can get cards that have some very good benefits and rewards programs, as well as some with great introductory offers.  Though I'm not familiar with details of Amazon's offer, $80 cash up-front with nothing else seems unlikely to be among your best options.  I would think that for at least some of the fee-free cards available to you, the benefits exceed the costs, and you could ""cash in"" some of the benefits of your good credit record to get those benefits (i.e. this is one of those things you work hard to build good credit for), while also building your long-term reputation for repayment reliability.   Also be aware as you shop around for cards that credit card companies pay fairly high referral fees to websites that send customers their way, so if you want you can think about who you're supporting when you click the link that takes you to an application you complete, and choose to support a site you think is providing a useful consumer-focused service.   As factors affecting your credit score in addition to payment history (i.e. making regular payments as agreed on the new account will help you), Equifax lists:" I started my business about 4 years ago.  I heard bad things about Quickbooks for Mac so I steered clear.  I used an open source program called GnuCash and it does a good job.  It's free and fairly easy to set up. Mint.com is a fantastic free personal finance software that can assist you with managing your money, planning budgets and setting financial goals. I've found the features to be more than adequate with keeping me informed of my financial situation. The advantage with Mint over Microsoft Money is that all of your debit/credit transactions are automatically imported and categorized (imperfectly but good enough). Mint is capable of handling bank accounts, credit card accounts, loans, and assets (such as cars, houses, etc). The downsides are: A bank is unlikely to provide a 'command line' interface because typical users consider a graphical interface easier to use than a command line interface. The extra effort in providing a command line interface for the remaining handful of people isn't worth it. It's the same reason that everything else in the world has a point and click interface. Command line-like features, such as easy repetition and keystroke shortcuts are also unlikely to implemented for the same reasons. They are hard to implement in a web interface, and most people aren't interested in them. Most people have only a few accounts and don't need to download multiple files on a frequent basis. They do typically provide link shortcuts to commonly used features. However all online banking works by implementing the HTTP protocol in some way. You should be able to deduce the HTTP transactions necessary to get the information you want, and implement your own 'command-line'style' interface, or any other interface you want. That won't be easy, especially since you will almost certainly have to implement the security protocols too, but it should be possible. "I don't see how this concept takes off. First and foremost, BankSimple is NOT a bank but a tech company masquerading as one. BankSimple leaves industry regulation and treasury management -- the CORE of banking, to outside parties.  Call me old fashioned, but I prefer to have as few stops between me and my money as possible. If not for a fear of losing it in a robbery and inability to earn interest, I'd shove it under a mattress. So why would I want to bank with an intermediary, who admittently doesn't understand how the process works? How is that ""looking out for my interests""? And how is your security better than other institutions that offer 128-bit encryption and multiple security questions to test a customer's identity?  I'd like to add that not charging overdraft fees and providing lines of credit to help customers out in the event they spend more than they have is nice in concept, but what happens when those same customers do not make deposits to cover their shortfalls? When it comes to money, people will take advantage of any opportunities they have to circumvent the system. Especially if funds are tight."