Fintech
John Pillar | FinTech Magazine
Always fascinated by technology and how computers work, John Pillar He spent much of his formative years taking apart computers and trying to figure out how to put them back together.
It is this fascination that sparked and subsequently launched Pillar’s career in the technology industry. After his IT education at Teeside University He has worked in numerous technology startups, holding executive and leadership positions.
“For me, it’s about the application of technology and how to enhance human capabilities in doing everyday tasks,” he says.
Technology that powers an effortless customer experience
Speaking of a time when web browsers were not as advanced as they are today, one of Pillar’s early career defining moments was when he joined a growing but little-known fashion company called AsSeenOnScreen, now a retail giant and fashion house better known as ASOS ShoesHe was part of the original technology team, building sites so customers could navigate and shop online, always with their experience in mind.
His experience in fashion retail, gained over a decade at the likes of ASOS, Marks & Spencer AND Arcadia Groupwhere he helped launch Beyoncé’s Ivy Park brand for Topshop digitally, is closely linked to his work in banking, a shift that began after he moved to NatWest in 2018.
Pillar continues: “Personalisation plays a big role and we use technology to help us with that. When we started ASOS, people weren’t really buying clothes online, we were still going to the shops because we wanted to feel and see how something fit. But buying over the internet, e-commerce, do you really trust that?
“Financial services were in a very similar position to retail at the time.”
Pillar believes that, just like the evolution seen with fashion retail, financial services could offer so much more. Pillar’s role is to ensure that technology supports NatWest’s operations for the evolving needs of its customers throughout their lives and across all their financial needs.
But the question Pillar continues to ask is this: How do you achieve true personalization in financial services without it being scary? And, more pressingly, how do you best protect customers from financial crime?
“All of these things are super important,” he stresses. “There are so many opportunities as an industry that still need to be tapped into.”
The most important factor for Pillar is maintaining trust and ensuring that NatWest’s technology remains intuitive across all its platforms, striking the right balance between introducing new technologies and ensuring that users are not resistant to change.
“Implementation should be as subtle and ‘in the background’ as possible, acting as a helper rather than being obvious,” he adds, sharing how implementing simple, effortless solutions is often the most time-consuming.
Outside of his career, technology plays a big role in Pillar’s personal life, too: The tech whiz has spent time building, from scratch, an app that helps him manage his young daughter’s type 1 diabetes.
“I’ve always had a strong connection to technology and been hands-on with it,” he says. “I have a fully automated home. I was so frustrated with needing an app for heating and an app for lights that I created my own systems and taught myself other languages.”
At home, her kids can walk into a living room, say “turn on the TV,” and the system Pillar has created even knows who said the command. But all of this was triggered by something more critical: managing her daughter’s health.
“With my daughter’s type 1 diabetes, the health technology ecosystem is very good if you’re the person who has a smartphone, but if you’re a family member or a professional, it’s very, very poor,” she stressed.
Frustrated by the gap in the market, Pillar decided to create a specialized diabetes app so he could monitor his daughter’s vital signs in real time, track her blood sugar levels, and determine if she needed medical attention.
“Throughout my professional career, there has always been a technological element, but I have always made sure to also lend a hand in the practical processes,” he concludes, underlining the importance to him of purposeful engineering technology.