They are subject to favorable regulatory treatment in most jurisdictions from which they are managed, which allows them to engage in financial activities that are off-limits for more regulated companies.

To pursue the point, although it is normal for regulated companies and publicly owned companies to face little competition, if they were replaced by some other structure it is not clear that competition would develop.

But he added that the commission wanted to insure that Nynex be structured to prevent any future efforts to keep profits at regulated companies low by moving them to unregulated affiliates.

Economists note that advances in computerization, the interstate marketing of financial products and competition from overseas by less regulated financial companies have brought many new players into these markets.

And at least two regulated companies, the Crusader Insurance Company of Woodland Hills, Calif., and the Farmers Group of Los Angeles, have made aggressive marketing efforts in poor neighborhoods.

Know your customer (KYC) refers to due diligence activities that financial institutions and other regulated companies must perform to ascertain relevant information from their clients for the purpose of doing business with them.

In Japan, the electricity market is divided up into 10 regulated companies:

When some of these unregulated sister companies still found it hard to turn a profit, regulators allowed the plants to become regulated companies again, so they were virtually guaranteed state-approved profit rates.

MS. SARYAN described the fund's second-largest holding, PG&E, as a more regulated company now.

When those companies do not trade upon a joint stock, but are obliged to admit any person, properly qualified, upon paying a certain fine, and agreeing to submit to the regulations of the company, each member trading upon his own stock, and at his own risk, they are called regulated companies.