First National Bank (FNB), the country’s largest vehicle and asset financier and one of the four largest retail banks, is being sued for R145million over one of banking’s most innovative products.
Leon Parkin, a Rustenburg-based businessman and inventor, claims that FNB stole his idea for InContact, a free SMS service that informs cheque account, credit and debit card customers of all transactions as they happen.
Parkin says that, in August 1999, he approached Chris Troskie, then manager for fraud identification and support at FNB, to present the idea.
Parkin alleges that during the meeting, he presented the idea of “contacting every customer about every transaction” involving their account. Troskie dismissed this as “totally impossible and uneconomical”, but when told that it would be done by SMS, admitted the “bank had never thought of it”.
Three years later, in December 2002, InContact was in place and, during a telephonic conversation, which Parkin claims to have recorded, Troskie acknowledged the idea, but said “he had changed it slightly”.
Parkin sees it as an income benefit to FNB, through the attraction and retention of customers, and a means of preventing fraud, which he estimates to be worth between R30million and R40million. As compensation, he sought a basic fee plus royalties, charged per customer, per year, but this was never quantified.
Now Parkin has taken the matter to the Pretoria High Court, claiming R145million based on loss of income from FNB’s savings and 15 years of projected royalties, based on 1,4million to 1,6million users. He also plans a publicity campaign called “FNB: How can we rob you”, anchored by a website.
The court action was launched last December, three years to the day from the disputed phone call, with FNB parent company FirstRand as first defendant and Troskie as the second. Parkin says he waited the maximum three-year period allowed in patent claim cases to maximise his claim based on number of clients.
Parkin says his aim is to change legislation protecting people’s original ideas and test the constitutionality of aspects of intellectual property law.
Recently, Troskie told the Mail & Guardian he had not received a summons in the matter and would prefer to discuss it in the presence of a lawyer.
FNB Spokesperson Galia Durbach told the M&G that FNB will defend the action and that it “believes the claim is not valid”. FNB is currently seeking clarification on Parkin’s claims so that it can prepare a formal defence.