In Brief: First Security Licensing More Sales Employees

The Salt Lake City banking company First Security Corp. is trying to add fuel to its brokerage fire.

During the next 18 months First Security Investor Services Inc. plans to license 315 employees-one per branch-to sell fixed annuities. Training to sell mutual funds should begin by early 1999, said Joseph Cooney, the unit's president and chief executive.

If the program is successful, Mr. Cooney said, he hopes to license at least two or three employees per branch. "But that's down the road," he added.

First Security Corp., an $18 billion-asset institution, has 36 full-time brokers for its full-service operations and another six who work in discount brokerage. "It's clearly a case that we don't have enough brokers," Mr. Cooney said.

First Security Corp. has had a discount brokerage since 1984 and full- service operations since the late 1980s.

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