Hi, I'm thinking of treating myself in the new year to a small investment in a MyC4 loans. These are loans to small business in developing countries, an alternative to just giving aid/charity, and you can bid for the loans on the MyC4.com website. The idea is that the business gets the opportunity to work their way out of poverty, and the investor gets their money back with interest.

They don't have many investments available at the moment,partly because they have varoius rules about investing around Christmas time, but I'm generally interested in the idea for some time in 2010, though I wouldn't be looking at a huge amount.

I'd be interested to know if anybody else has done this. Otherwise, do people have any views on this? Seems like a good idea to me but maybe too good to be true? I suppose it depends on what your beliefs are re. international economic policy/theory. I don't pretend to know much about economics. But I bet some of you will have things to say about this sort of thing - would be really interested to hear!

I like the idea in (ethical) principle but at a net interest earnings of -7.43% you'd have to be a fairly confident philanthropist?

Or am I missing something