Lend to an African entrepreneur

Peer-to-peer lenders like Zopa, Funding Circle and RateSetter are catching on because of the interest rates on offer.

(Just bear in mind, always, that there's no deposit protection as you get with banks.)

But Chris Shearlock from the Co-op has reminded me that the peer-to-peer model is also working to support people who are starting businesses in the developing world.

Lend With Care has managed to make 25,000 loans in its first year, helping entrepreneurs in Africa, East Asia and Eastern Europe with small loans.

You're not going to be taking part in this to make profits, but you can hope to get your money back while creating livelihoods and jobs.

There are others providing micro-loans, a fantastic charity near me, for instance, called Microloan Foundation, but the Lend With Care idea connects lenders directly with borrowers.

Please tell me about other comparable organisations which are doing this - it's worth giving them some publicity.

Death-knell for interest-only mortgages

The Cooperative Bank has become the first major lender to pull out completely from offering interest-only mortgages.

The move comes in the wake of a clampdown from the City watchdog, the FSA, which wants all mortgage applications to be assessed on a capital repayment basis.

With an interest-only mortgage, the borrower only has to pay the monthly interest bill, without making regular payments to reduce the size of the loan.

Santander, Lloyds and Barclays have already made it much harder to qualify for an interest-only loan.

Now the Coop, the UK's 10th largest mortgage lender, says it has decided to pull out of the market. The decision also applies to the Britannia, which was taken over by the Cooperative Bank in 2009.

The group's 60,000 customers who already have the loans will be able to apply for new Coop-branded interest-only loans - but they'll find it very difficult to shop around for a better deal.