Mark J Cox, mark@awe.com  
   
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12 Jan 2004: Getting USA Microsoft Money to work with UK banks

For historical reasons I use the USA version of Microsoft Money. Unfortunately the US version will only connect to US/CA banks and the UK version to UK banks and I wanted a version that would connect to both. There is no reason why it shouldn't work because the protocol used to talk to the banks is open (OFX). In fact it does work, and here is how to do it.

Unfortunately Microsoft changed the way financial institutions work with Money 2005 onwards, so this hack will only work for Money 2004 and below.

Disclaimer: Back up everything, I'm not responsible if you lose 6 years of data or if you suffer heart problems after Money reports your net worth is now negative.

  1. You need a copy of the file FIPARTNR.INI from the UK version of Microsoft Money. Or if you know the details you can make one up yourself.
  2. Backup everything, exit Money
  3. Find your current version of the US FIPARTNR.INI file (it will be in the SYSTEM subdirectory of your Money installation)
  4. Append the contents of the UK FIPARTNR.INI file to the end of the current one
  5. Go into Money (make sure you don't do an internet update)
  6. Goto your finanacial institution (Nationwide say), click "online setup" and with luck it will recognise, configure, and connect to Nationwide
  7. After connecting Money thinks it's being clever and will notice you've altered FIPARTNR.INI and will download a new one. At this point Money will complain that "New online settings are available for Nationwide". You can safely ignore this message (and you'll have to ignore it each time you do an Internet update
But unless you use the UK Nationwide bank or the Woolwich you'll be disappointed; they seem to be the only ones that are fully integrated with Money

Created: 12 Jan 2004
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Hi! I'm Mark Cox. This blog gives my thoughts and opinions on my security work, open source, fedora, home automation, and other topics.

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