How readily does Mint add new banks?

September 19, 2009 5:43 AM

How readily does Mint add new banks?

I have just decided to use Mint... just got married, finances a bit more messy than before. Anyway, when I tried to add my bank, I was told that they don't have it and are working on establishing a connection.

So my question is: how likely is it to expect that they'll get my bank up in working order anytime in the near future? It's a regional credit union with three (fairly large) branches in the Northeast. Any experience/ advice here is welcome.

P.S. I've also moved, recently and kept my bank because I have so much history with it... might it be worth it to change the bank to somewhere I can deposit checks etc. without driving over an hour?

posted by marylucycraft to work & money (13 comments total)

Mint uses Yodlee (for now; it's likely that they'll switch to Intuit's system now that they've been bought). You might look if Yodlee supports them in MoneyCenter. If so, I'd bet quite soon. If not, does Intuit? Cause you might eventually get it that way.
posted by rbs at 6:02 AM on September 19

I use an out-of-state credit union for most of my banking, but I finally ended up opening an account with a local bank so that I could have additional services (notary, safety deposit box, cashing checks, currency exchange). I do often mail checks to my credit union for deposit, and that works fine for me, but I only have to do it occasionally.
posted by amtho at 6:13 AM on September 19

I recently read that it is often not so much a question of Mint supporting your bank, but rather your bank supporting the standard third-party interface that Mint uses. Try asking your credit union about it.
posted by Nothlit at 6:22 AM on September 19

Also, on the deposit thing: my credit union offers free deposit-by-mail envelopes to any member who requests them, and they also allow members to scan in checks and deposit them electronically through their online banking system. It might be worth seeing if your credit union offers any similar services.
posted by Nothlit at 6:25 AM on September 19

Depends on several factors - how hard the bank's log in systems is to automate into Mint and how many people want it being most important.

Please a request in forums.mint.com for it to be added - there are instructions on what information to provide so they can follow up on your request.

Good luck.
posted by unclezeb at 6:31 AM on September 19

It's a crap shoot. I have Citibank for everything -- a Visa card, an IRA, a checking account, a savings account, and a "checking plus" overdraft protection account. All of these accounts were linked, and all used the same password and login on the Citibank web site.

I spent a YEAR trying to get Mint to correct the fact that I could only access my checking and savings account. I could not add my IRA, my Visa, or my checking plus, despite the fact that they all were LINKED to that account and all used exactly the same password and login. I would type exactly the same password and login for all my accounts, but Mint would reject them for my IRA and Visa as "wrong password". I would get a big runaround whenever I complained (you know how when you start out your email complaint saying, "I double-checked that I was using the proper login and I am, but it's still saying that it's wrong," and you get the canned email answer, "first be sure you are using the proper login"? Yeah).

It was doing a great job of helping me track things in my checking account, but they couldn't fix that, so I finally quit.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:34 AM on September 19 [1 favorite]

Ok, Yodlee does not support it but Intuit does (via Quicken Online). Hmmmm. Is free Quicken as good an option as Mint?
posted by marylucycraft at 6:35 AM on September 19

I asked them to add a small loan company about 3 months ago and haven't gotten any reply yet. It's likely that they prioritize additions by request popularity, so if your bank only has a few branches, I wouldn't hold your breath.
posted by chrisamiller at 6:41 AM on September 19

Intuit just bought Mint, so I'd imagine that it will show up given enough time.
posted by Magnakai at 6:43 AM on September 19

I posted in their forum to ask Mint to add a small north east credit union where I have a savings account, and they did after about a month. So that might be worth a try for you.

Also, for the record, I had a really hard time adding one of my accounts in Mint, somewhat similar to Empress's issue. What fixed it for me was to change the password to using less than 8 characters. Apparently, some types of accounts, like credit cards, can sometimes reject the login if the pw is more than 8 characters. So while the exact same 10-character pw might work fine for a normal bank account, it would not work for a credit card. Weird but true.
posted by gemmy at 7:16 AM on September 19

On the local bank part, you might want to check to see if they're part of a credit union network. I'm 3+ hours from my closest main credit union branch, but there's network banks within a few minutes drive. It's still annoying for some specialty services, but if you just need to deposit checks and what not, it works just fine.
posted by kmz at 11:25 AM on September 19

Good luck with that. My bank switched to an image-based verification system a couple of years ago, just after Mint left beta. They promised to add it within a year and still nothing. Yodlee doesn't support it either. I've even had a Mint employee informally reach out to me via Mefi Mail here on MeFi after I mentioned this problem before. Nada. When I did use Mint (I was a beta tester) it was great and they were very quick to respond to adding banks and such. So I guess it depends on what login system your bank uses and if they have the technology to add it.
posted by IndigoRain at 12:34 PM on September 19

It wouldn't work with Universal Campus Credit Union, presumably because it asks you all sorts of extra questions like, "What is your favorite cheese" etc. Now that Quicken has purchased it, its connectivity may improve but it will probably start to suck in every other significant way and compel you to pay for the experience.
posted by mecran01 at 2:00 PM on September 19