Investment Bank Dresdner Kleinwort is upgrading its core banking systems to help comply with a Europe-wide single payments initiative.

The creation of the EU Single European Payments Area (Sepa) – to be introduced fully in 2010 – will mean all electronic payments are considered domestic.

"We expect to see a significantly increased business volume in corporate cash products as a result of SEPA," said Dresdner Kleinwort chief information officer Pascal Emile. "We needed a platform that could help us to meet these challenges while providing a single centralised system across our branch network."

The new system from vendor Temenos will go live at the beginning of 2008 in Austria followed by the UK later in the year.

It will help the bank move towards real-time non-stop banking, rather than processing transactions in batches overnight.