Last checked at 
LONDON, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Britain's biggest banks have sofar paid out only 158.6 million pounds ($261.1 million) of the 3billion pounds they have set aside to compensate small firmsmis-sold complex interest rate hedging products, the financialregulator said.
The Financial Conduct Authority said on Friday that the paceof banks reviewing cases of mis-selling was continuing toincrease. A total of 1,040 offers of compensation had beenaccepted by customers at the end of December, up from 547 at theend of November. The amount of compensation paid had risen from81.2 million pounds at the end of November.
The products were designed to protect smaller companiesagainst rising interest rates but when rates fell, they had topay large bills, typically running to tens of thousands ofpounds. Companies also faced penalties to get out of the deals,which many said they had not been told about.
