Restructuring of debts: documentation of statistics

The main data content of the statistics on restructuring of debts concerns debt restructuring petitions in Finland. The numbers are classified by the petitioner's gender, age, main type of activity and family type. The classifying variables used in the statistics are also region, district court, duration of the payment schedule, amount of debt, decisions given by district court and nature of the debt restructuring case.

Petitions for restructuring of debts received by district courts refer to all petitions filed at district courts during the period under review. Debt restructuring cases concluded refer to cases concluded at district courts during the year. In addition to debt restructuring petitions, other debt restructuring cases processed by district courts are also recorded in the statistics on debt restructuring cases concluded.

The same person can submit several petitions for debt restructuring per year, so the number of petitions is higher than the number of applicants for debt restructuring.

The first enterprise restructuring petition for a calendar year is recorded as a pending restructuring case. Other petitions concerning the same enterprise or corporation received during the calendar year are only visible in the statistics in cases concluded.

The statistics on debt restructuring cases concluded describe a different population than the statistics on petitions filed at district courts. Cases concluded include cases instituted already before the statistical reference year and correspondingly, part of the cases instituted during the statistical reference year will be concluded only in coming years.

Statistics Finland publishes statistics on cases concerning the restructuring of private debts handled and concluded by district courts. A new law concerning the restructuring of private debts entered into force in Finland on 8 February 1993, with the aim of improving the economic position of private people who have run into financial difficulties. The restructuring of private debts gives insolvent persons the possibility to become discharged from some or all of their debts if they are for reasons other than temporary ones unable to make the repayments that fall due on their debts. Admittance of a private person into a debt restructuring scheme is decided by the court.

The population of the statistics is debt restructuring petitions filed at district courts and debt restructuring cases concluded by district courts.

The key observation units of the statistics (debt restructuring petitions filed and debt restructuring cases concluded) are legal cases. It is a question of cases brought before district courts and cases decided there.

The measurement unit of the data published in the statistics is number.

For debt restructuring petitions filed, the number of petitions filed at district courts is recorded.

In the statistics on debt restructuring cases concluded, the number of debt restructuring cases concluded at district courts is recorded.

The reference period of the statistics on debt restructuring petitions filed at district courts is a quarter. The statistics describe the number of debt restructuring petitions filed by the end of a quarter (before the release) in the statistical reference year in question. For example, the data for the January to March period (1st quarter) of the year in question are released in April.

For debt restructuring cases concluded, the reference period is the statistical reference year. The data are usually released in early June and they describe the data for the previous year. For example, data concerning 2018 were published in 2019.

The reference area of the statistics is Finland.

The phenomenon in the statistics has no connection with economic activities or sectors.
 

As regards debt restructuring petitions filed at district courts, the statistics start from the beginning of 2003. This applies to both annual, quarterly and monthly data.

As regards debt restructuring petitions filed, the data become revised as a result of reviews and corrections. As a rule, the figures are corrected already during the next statistical month. The changes caused by the corrections are small in terms of total numbers and they are not significant in forming the overall image of the occurrence.

The statistics on debt restructuring cases concluded start from 2009. These are annual statistics and the published data are final.

The statistics on debt restructuring petitions filed are disseminated quarterly.
The statistics on debt restructuring cases concluded are disseminated yearly.

The statistics on restructuring of debts, including both petitions filed and cases concluded, are statistics based on the (register) data produced from the district courts’ case management system. The statistics describe the examined phenomenon as it is stored in the system on which the statistics are based. The main sources of error in the statistics are possible errors in the basic data or errors caused in the processing of the data.

A key means of assessing the accuracy of the data is to examine statistical data relative to the source data. Another way is to examine quarterly or annual data relative to previous quarters or years.

The statistics on debt restructuring petitions filed are published quarterly approximately two to three weeks from the end of the quarter.

The statistics on concluded cases are released yearly approximately six months from the end of the statistical reference year.
The release dates can be found in Statistics Finland's release calendar.

There is no delay between the release calendar and the release date for the statistics on debt restructuring petitions filed.
In 2019, the statistics on debt restructuring cases concluded were delayed by around one month, on account of the extra time required for the processing of the data.

The statistics are comparable regionally for the entire time series.

The time series of the statistics are mostly comparable from one year to the next.

Monthly data (debt restructuring petitions filed) and annual data (debt restructuring cases concluded) released in the statistics are produced from the same statistical data in different processes. The above-mentioned statistics describe the same topic from different perspectives and are thus not coherent with each other.

Quarterly (petitions filed) and annual (cases concluded) statistics on restructuring of debts are not fully coherent internally. The above-mentioned statistics describe the same occurrence from different viewpoints. The statistics on petitions filed at district courts show the number of debt restructuring petitions filed during the year. The statistics on debt restructuring cases concluded present the number of cases concluded by district courts during the year.

Thus, the population of the two sets of statistics mentioned above is different, one describing the number of petitions filed and the other the number of cases concluded during the year.

The statistics on restructuring of debts are based on register data derived from the district courts' case management system (Tuomas). The basic data are received monthly from the Legal Register Centre.

The background information on the persons used in the compilation of the statistics derives from the data of population statistics.

The data are received once a month as a line transfer from the Legal Register Centre. The delivery of the data and the practices of the following year are agreed on once a year (towards the end of the year).

The basic data are collected once a month.

The data received from the Legal Register Centre are processed monthly according to the same process. Data from Statistics Finland's population statistics system are combined with the data.

The data are validated in connection with the compilation of the statistics by means of established review routines.

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