This is at a large company. A coworker who worked at another large company previously said it was similar there too. There's a big push for developers to have business acumen so that they understand what they are building, asking appropriate questions while not slowing the process down with trivial questions. It also seems that many of the people in finance, even on the tech side, are concerned with reputation and prestige. Things like credentials and status symbols (like talking about thier luxury cars and expensive toys) are common in the trading and trading support areas of the company.

I do not have a CFA charter, nor want one. I did take the CFA Foundations cert since management made it unofficially mandatory. I think this level of knowledge would be useful for devs working in that area, but this isn't the only measure of that knowledge. At that time, the cert cost money and was held at a test center (it's now free and online). I tried to avoid taking it since I already have that knowledge from my business admin minor, but management basically forced me to take it anyways. I passed it two days later and management was amazed - I guess they didn't believe that I my minor was worth anything but that this stupid test was.

So it might be different at your company, but there are companies and managers out there who look favorably on having a CFA Foundations or CFA Charter (or even just passing level 1 or 2). It can even get you more pay. It's credentialing similar to others you would list on a resume, like the OP mentioning his major/minor in his post. The real issue for the OP, is that if he's unemployed then he can't get a CFA charter anyways since you have to have years of experience in the industry and your company to sponsor/approve you if you don't work in one of the approved/listed roles (on the business side).