Choosing which online banking service to use is a hit and miss affair. Even finding the banks can be difficult.

Picking between them is difficult. Many offer potential customers demonstrations of online banking on their websites and here the Nationwide demo is particularly informative.

But to get a real flavour of how a site works and whether it is fast or slow, customers must open an account. This is a hassle while opening more than one can be difficult. Many require a minimum balance or minimum monthly payment (Cahoot demands you deposit £500 each month, while Citibank wants your salary paid into the account).

This leaves most customers with just one option: making comparisions of interest rates across accounts.

Gomez (www.gomez.com), a US online comparison specialist has teamed up with FTYourMoney (www.ftyourmoney.com) to rank the online banks by ease of use, customer service, web resources, value for money, and customer confidence in the brand. Overall, Smile comes out top. But Nationwide beats the Co-op-owned bank for its handholding of first-time users. First Direct, Halifax, Royal Bank of Scotland and Woolwich are all highly-rated, too.

Providing the basics

The services available are fairly similar for all accounts, but slight differences make some easier to use. All, apart from First-e, (no full current account yet), and HSBC and Bank of Scotland (www.bankofscotland.co.uk), not yet fully operational, provide these basics:

Checking balances on the web.

Online bill payments and transfers to other people.

Setting up and cancelling standing orders and cancelling direct debits.

Not all facilities are equal however. Bank of Scotland, a recent web convert, only offers access to a statement covering the last 30 days, against 90 days at Nationwide or six months at the Co-op.

Differences in settlement

Online bill payment services vary. Most now allow payments to any UK bank account. But Bank of Scotland's bill payment system does not start until September while Woolwich and the Co-operative are highly restrictive. Both force customers to authorise a recipient by telephone in advance before any bill payments can be made to them through the website - rather defeating the point of banking online.

Lloyds TSB's bill payment restricts payments to a set (although long) list of common billers, such as utility companies. Other settlement requires a call to Lloyds for authorisation.

Ease of use of the different online bill payment services also differs. Several force customers to set up a list of recipients in advance of payments, which could be frustrating if all the user wants to do is make a one-off payment. Speed can also be an issue with the banks that require lists of payees to be set up before any payments. NatWest is the slowest, taking two days from the new recipient being entered on screen before payments are allowed - although this is likely to change under the ownership of RBS, which allows payments immediately after a new recipient is added to the list.

Home finance

Customers who use home finance software such as Quicken or Microsoft Money will have to pick their bank carefully. Some support only one piece of software, which means converting to the right file format, while some do not allow statements to be downloaded at all.

Further, not all services are open all the time (even when they work). Lloyds is the most restricted, closing from midnight to 4am. Most people don't want to do their banking in the middle of the night anyway, but night-owls beware.

Extra services offered by some banks on their websites include applications for overdrafts, secure e-mail to contact staff and, with the more advanced services, the ability to open extra accounts without needing to fill in any extra information.

Finally, you should carefully check the security system. A powerful security system is important but so too is an ability to remember all the passwords provided. After all, a secure system that keeps out authorised users as well as hackers, is not much cop.