The world seems very serious right now. Elections, trade wars, Federal Reserve actions, etc, etc. So I decided this week just to share something that has had me chuckling for several days.
I listened to a conference call this week from a company that provides software services to brokers and other financial institutions. All throughout their call they referenced their major product, called Fenics. I could not find a reference to Fenics anywhere. So I wrote to the company and asked “What the heck is FENICS?”. The response?
Apparently the company bought some software that was developed a number of years ago and they have been updating and improving it ever since. The original author was a big science fiction fan, and he got the name from an obscure science fiction novel. Fenics stands for:
Foreign Exchange Nuclear Inter-planetary Computer System.
I kid you not. The major software service from a two billion dollar company is called Fenics. It’s still making me chuckle.