Flavor constraints on new physics

We review the recent progress in our theoretical understanding of flavor-changing processes. The overall excellent agreement with the corresponding measurements allows to derive severe constraints on possible extensions of the Standard Model (SM). The important interplay between flavor, electroweak (EW) and Higgs boson probes of new phenomena is emphasized. Once the EW hierarchy problem is confronted with null results from searches for direct production of new particles at the LHC, a case can be made against purely flavor trivial new physics (NP) at the TeV scale. Theory implications of the few open experimental flavor puzzles are also briefly discussed.