FIFA Clearing House and Temenos discuss modernisation lessons

FIFA Clearing House and Temenos used a FinextraTV interview at Temenos Community Forum 2026 to set out lessons from a modernisation programme built around scale, governance and partner selection. Lydie Specque, president and CEO of FIFA Clearing House, said the organisation had moved from an initially transaction-oriented model toward an operating set-up designed to reposition and expand its capabilities.

The discussion featured Specque alongside Mark Yamin Ali, managing director for Europe at Temenos. Finextra labelled the video as sponsored and said the segment was produced by its editorial team with input from subject-matter experts at the funding sponsor.

Specque described the starting point as a legacy position in which the organisation’s model was focused on processing transactions. She said FIFA Clearing House then needed to change that model to support repositioning and scale, according to FinextraTV’s summary of the interview.

Her three stated requirements for a faster technology modernisation programme were internal collaboration, strong governance and selecting the right partner. Those themes reflect the operating burden that typically sits behind platform change: teams must align business processes, decision rights must be clear, and external technology providers must fit the institution’s constraints and objectives.

Three operating tests

Internal collaboration, as described in the discussion, refers to the need for functions inside an organisation to work together rather than treat modernisation as a standalone technology exercise. In financial infrastructure and payments, system changes can affect workflows, compliance processes and service delivery, so coordination across the institution becomes part of execution.

Governance determines how decisions are made, escalated and controlled during a programme. For an organisation shifting away from a transaction-led legacy model, governance can define who approves design choices, how risks are monitored and how the project stays linked to the wider operating model.

The third element, partner selection, places emphasis on the relationship between the institution and its technology provider. Specque identified having the right partner as one of the factors that supported a faster modernisation process, according to FinextraTV.

Applicability beyond one programme

Yamin Ali addressed how other organisations could apply a similar approach to their own circumstances. FinextraTV said he discussed how comparable modernisation principles can be adapted rather than copied directly, recognising that institutions differ in legacy systems, regulatory requirements, operating scale and business objectives.

The interview was listed by Finextra under channels including payments, regulation and compliance, and artificial intelligence, and under keywords including transaction banking, innovation and core banking systems. The full video runs six minutes and 47 seconds on Finextra Research’s YouTube channel.

This story draws on original reporting from Finextra Research.