BBC News Online is one of the winners in the Financial Times Business Website of the Year Awards announced on Monday.

It is News Online's fourth major award of the year and was made in the category for sites in the public sector.

The site was praised as being "the most wide-ranging, constantly updated site on the Web today, with over 400 live stories being accessible at any given time...the site operates a huge archive of over 60,000 stories."

Judging by other awards made at the ceremony in central London, electronic commerce is beginning to pay off for companies.

Dell Europe, with computer sales of more than $5 million a week on its site, took the Large Organisations category in a ceremony held at the Cafe Royal.

Dell's site allows customers to review, configure, price,order and track the delivery of PCs. Global sales generated by the Internet for the company now amount to $2bn a year.

Fourth major award

For BBC News Online, one year old last month, the FT award is added to the recently announced Site of the Year from Internet Magazine, the UK's highest-circulation monthly covering the Net.

The site has already picked up the British Interactive Media prize for top information site, and in October became the first Website to win a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (Bafta) award.

Banking on Web growth

There were joint winners of the Finance category. The Co-operative Bank attracted 12,000 customers to its online banking site in its first six months since launch in March.

"In terms of financial return, the bank has been able to demonstrate significant short-term payback, with increasing benefits anticipated long term," said the citation.

And GNI provides brokerage services and research in the global derivatives market via the Internet. Site features include a Chat button enabling a typed conversation with a GNI dealer, available 24 hours a day.

PhotoDisc Europe won the Small to Medium Organisations category. It has shifted its stock photography from expensive distribution by CD-Rom to an online searchable archive with secure transaction software.

PhotoDisc's online sales now represent 33% of its total income, up 282% on the first quarter of last year.

The Not for Profit category was won by The Nature Conservancy. It handles membership requests and donations online, saving on administration costs. Successful adoption programmes have been launched on the site such as Adopt a Bison and Adopt an Acre (of rain forest)