By Rob Aberdein 

Common Financial Statement à Standard Financial Statement

The Standard Financial Statement (SFS) – a tool for assessing income and expenditure and guidelines (also known as ‘trigger figures’) on household expenditure – was launched on 1 March 2017 and intended to be used by all those involved in debt management and advice (including creditors, debt advice agencies, insolvency practitioners, utilities, trade associations and others) to produce consistent results across the UK.

The SFS was also intended to improve and streamline the customer journey, as the transfer of standard financial customer information between agencies should reduce the number of times affordability assessments have to be completed; and reduce the risk of discrepancy between, say, a customer’s affordability assessment with their creditor and with a debt advice agency; and enable customers to more easily compare debt management options.