Despite Barclays Bank's claims of success in its Prestige Banking Service, many patrons have expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of the new product introduced last year.

Some patrons told the Ghana News Agency in Accra on Monday that the service, supposed to reduce stress and make bank transactions convenient, was rather becoming burdensome and frustrating.

Barclays introduced Prestige Banking to provide expedited transactions to privileged customers for a minimum monthly fee of 50,000 cedis for local account holders and 10 dollars for foreign account operators.

The service is available at Osu, High Street and Kumasi branches and boasts of a 100 per cent increase in membership since its inauguration.

The benefits include longer banking hours - 0800 hours to 1800 hours -, seated waiting area, complementary beverages, privacy and additional security.

Although the physical surroundings at all three centres are prestigious- well guarded, the banking halls' plush couches and complementary beverages- a number customers who spoke to the GNA said that the actual service delivered was below par.

"The attitude of staff does not match with the concept of first class service that patrons have come to expect," said a foreign businesswoman.

"It is supposed to be like flying in first class travel. But what is happening here is third class," she added.

Another person who threatened to stop patronising the service said, "we have agreed to pay the monthly premium because we wanted to bank at our convenience as we were made to believe, so anything less than this should not be tolerated."

The customer said he sent a bearer with his membership card and a cheque to withdraw money from one of the centres but he was turned away.

He said bank officials should have verified the bearer's authority the phone instead of turning him away. "I had to abandon my work and drive through the mid-day traffic to clear this simple matter."

Some of the customers said the centres delivered prestige service initially but this has deteriorated as the months rolled by.

A customer at the High Street branch said he was stunned when bank officials at Achimota branch insisted that he joined a long queue of non-prestige patrons.

"The prestige card only works at Osu or High Street. At other branches, whether you hold a prestige card or not, you have to join the queue," the personal banker at Achimota told the GNA when it called there to verify the customers' claims.

The Branch Manager however, refused to see the GNA when it requested to speak with her.

According to Africa Prestige, a Barclays' newsletter, a new branch will be opened on the Spintex Road in Accra this month and another at the Millennium Heights, near the Kotoka International Airport, next month.