From 1 January 2027, SEPA Direct Debit payments through the Bank of Lithuania’s CENTROlink system will become significantly cheaper. The current flat fee of €0.04 per SDD payment is replaced by tiered pricing, falling to as low as €0.0035 for institutions processing more than one million SDD payments per month.
For high-volume payment service providers, that means a reduction of more than 90%.
New CENTROlink SEPA Direct Debit pricing
Until now, CENTROlink has applied a flat €0.04 fee to SDD payment orders, regardless of monthly volume.
From 1 January 2027, the pricing will change:
| Monthly SDD volume | Current fee | New fee | Reduction |
| Up to 250,000 | €0.0400 | €0.0250 | 37.5% |
| 250,001–500,000 | €0.0400 | €0.0120 | 70% |
| 500,001–850,000 | €0.0400 | €0.0095 | 76.25% |
| 850,001–1,000,000 | €0.0400 | €0.0055 | 86.25% |
| More than 1,000,000 | €0.0400 | €0.0035 | 91.25% |
The biggest difference is therefore at scale. An institution processing more than one million SDD transactions per month will pay less than one tenth of today's transaction fee.
Why this matters for direct SEPA access
For institutions with significant recurring payment volumes, transaction economics are an important part of the decision between connecting directly to payment infrastructure and accessing it indirectly through a commercial bank or another intermediary.
The new CENTROlink pricing changes that calculation.
“For high-volume direct debit, the economics matter most. Until now, direct access through CENTROlink could be difficult to justify when indirect routes offered more competitive transaction pricing. The new pricing makes direct SDD much more attractive at scale and gives more financial institutions a reason to consider direct access, which brings even more value and competitive advantage beyond pricing. This change will allow us to bring larger businesses to CENTROlink.”
Asta Meskerevičiūtė, Co-Founder at Inventi
CENTROlink already provides EEA-licensed banks, electronic money institutions, payment institutions and other eligible PSPs with access to SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT), SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) and SEPA Direct Debit Core (SDD Core) through the Bank of Lithuania’s infrastructure.
Lower SDD pricing now makes the direct model materially more competitive for institutions where recurring collections are an important part of the payment proposition.
SEPA Direct Debit is already growing quickly in CENTROlink
The pricing change comes while SDD usage is already accelerating.
In 2024, the Bank of Lithuania reported that the use of SEPA Direct Debit through CENTROlink had more than doubled. In 2025, SDD increased from 5% to 8% of all payments processed by the system. With 379.7 million payments processed that year, that represents roughly 30 million direct debit transactions.
And CENTROlink itself continues to grow. In 2025 it processed 379.7 million payments worth €838 billion. Today, 145 customers across 22 jurisdictions use CENTROlink.
Across the euro area, approximately 23 billion direct debits worth €11.2 trillion were processed during 2025. Direct debits accounted for 14% of all non-cash payments in the first half of the year.
There is still room for SDD to grow in the Baltics
Scheme participation also shows an interesting regional gap.
According to European Payments Council data from September 2026, 2,742 payment service providers participate in the SDD Core scheme across SEPA. Among Lithuanian-licensed participants, 10 participate in SDD Core, compared with 82 in SCT. Of those licensed in Latvia, 1 participates in SDD Core, compared with 18 in SCT, while for those licensed in Estonia, the figures are 1 and 10, respectively.
These numbers do not represent transaction volumes, but they do show that participation in SEPA Direct Debit remains considerably lower in the Baltics than participation in credit transfers.
Lower infrastructure pricing removes one practical barrier to further growth.
What does this mean for Inventi clients?
For Inventi clients using SEPA Direct Debit through CENTROlink, the change means lower underlying transaction costs from 1 January 2027 – with the biggest difference for institutions processing high volumes.
Inventi Payment Gateway connects banks, EMIs and payment institutions to CENTROlink and supports SCT, SCT Inst and SDD Core through the same payment infrastructure.
For institutions evaluating direct SEPA access, the new SDD pricing also changes the business case: direct connectivity no longer needs to come with the same cost disadvantage at higher direct debit volumes.
Considering direct SEPA or SEPA Direct Debit through CENTROlink? Let’s talk.