The offices of the Atonsu-Agogo agency of the Bosomtwe Rural Bank in Kumasi has been expanded and relocated to ease the congestion, which the bank was faced with due to its ever-increasing clientele.

The new banking hall which has other appendages such as branch manager's office, conference hall, dining and Information Technology (IT) rooms, was constructed by the bank at the cost of 462 million cedis and replaces much smaller one which did not provide any comfortable environment for its customers.

Speaking at a short ceremony held at the forecourt of the new structure to commission it on Friday, Rev Simon Atta, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the bank with its headquarters at Kuntanase in Ashanti, said the expansion of the agency's office became necessary as a result of the merger of its two agencies at Asafo in Kumasi and another at Agogo in the Asante-Akyem district to the Atonsu-Agogo agency in 1999.

He said the number of its customers almost tripled leading to a situation of congestion at the banking halls.

Rev Atta said plans are also far advanced to computerize the entire operations of the bank and the computerization, which is receiving funds from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), is aimed at providing fast accurate and more efficient services to customers.

Mr Kwasi Afful of the Ashanti Region branch of the Association of Rural Banks, called on clients who take loans from the bank to pay back the loans.

He called on the customers who benefit from the bank's credit facilities to plough back their profits into buying more shares to help them to reinvest while broadening also the capital base of the bank.

The bank, which has as at March 31, this year made a gross profit of 409 million cedis, also had a total deposit of 16.2 billion cedis with total depositors of 30,000.