Banks urged to act over mis-selling Opposition shadow ministers have written to bank bosses, including Bob Diamond, chief executive of Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland boss, Stephen Hester, and Antonio Horta-Osorio, chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group, calling on them to offer concessions such as a moratorium on foreclosures of affected businesses. In a letter seen by The Sunday Telegraph, Toby Perkins, shadow small business minister, and Chris Leslie, shadow financial secretary to the Treasury, said banks needed to do more to help mis-selling victims who claim their lenders sold them complex derivatives meant to protect them against rising rates that in some cases have left them with hundreds of thousands and even millions of pounds in extra costs they say they were never warned about. Labour says banks that have received complaints must give assurances that they will not treat customers who have complained about the products "adversely," as well as doing more to resolve complaints quicker. The banks are also being asked to commit to not foreclosing on businesses that have registered a complaint as well as voluntarily extending the length of time customers have to make a complaint. "We believe that the actions and assurances that we are seeking above would demonstrate good faith on behalf of the banks and would minimise the damage to your customers in the period whilst the banks continue to investigate the practices that we have mentioned," wrote Mr Perkins and Mr Leslie. A parliamentary debate is scheduled for Thursday to look at the issue of interest swaps mis-selling and the Fin­an­cial Services Authority is due to announce the results of its review of the product before the end of the month. More than 100 MPs supported the move. The issue even made it in the bank reform debate last week, with shadow chancellor Ed Balls criticising Mark Hoban, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, for allowing lenders to continue selling the products. "May I ask this champion of light-touch regulation to explain why, contrary to Vickers, it is right to allow retail banks inside the ring fence to trade in derivatives and hedging products, which are among the controversial interest rate swap products that many small firms complain they were mis-sold in recent years?" said Mr Balls. Senior bankers have played down the issue and in March, Mr Diamond said Barclays had only received a "very small number" of complaints but admitted the bank had in "some cases" made "mistakes." Last month, Sir Philip Hamp­ton, chairman of RBS, said the proportion of small business customers sold interest rate swaps was less than half of 1pc. Responding to an earlier letter from Labour politicians, Mr Diamond reiterated that Barclays took "seriously" the allegation of interest rate swap mis-selling. An investigation by The Telegraph has over the last four months uncovered claims of systematic mis-selling of interest rate hedging products by Britain's major banks. All the banks deny any widespread mis-selling.