Competition and regulation in the banking and quasi-banking industries: evidence from Italy

Over the past three decades, new types of credit institution have been developed and new forms of intermediation have succeeded in establishing themselves as important competitors in the credit market. The literature on regulation has never paid much attention to the behaviour of quasi-banking institutions, from the point of view of their distinctive characteristics and management peculiarities This paper investigates the relationship between regulation and competition among non banking credit intermediaries and banks. This study assess the importance of the management characteristics and profiles of quasi-banking institutions, for regulatory purposes, and to examine the relationship between the regulatory process and differing business behaviours. This study deals with a specific aspect of the regulation of financial systems. In any case, in the wide-ranging and animated discussions on regulation, recently there seems to be a growing interest in this specific issue, in respect of both the tendency towards the harmonization of regulations and of the extension of forms of control to sectors and/or activities which had previously been excluded. The paper also discusses the ideal design for an empirical investigation to analyse: 1) the management and organization structures of quasi-banks and their differing characteristics and behaviours, in respect of the regulatory process; 2) if the recent development of controls ensure competitive equality among the financial institutions. The empirical investigation has focused on factoring institutions and identified some behavioural differences which are relevant for the supervisory authorities.