rahmu wroteWell COBOL (just like FORTRAN) was extremely popular back in mainframes days. With the apparition of 2-tier architectures and workstations, all these new technologies like Java and C# and the likes, became more and more popular. Scripting languages like Perl and Python showed great potential as they increase programmer's productivity. Then there was the 3-tier and n-tier, and JEE, .NET, databases, ...
But what about the old COBOL code? Who is going to maintain it? It is not always easy to re-write from scratch, and this is mainly why cobol programmers are wanted. There was a study (can't seem to find it) that estimated that there are more running cobol code lines that all other languages combined.
So yeah COBOL is not really dead. The problem is that (bad) non-technical managers need something shiny new to impress their superiors and this is why they labeled it "obsolete".
Now about the file handling, I don't know how well COBOL does with databases, but I doubt that banks use plain files to store data.
Cobol used the called the six wheel trailer of languages , because it’s slow bulky and plain ugly however it’s robust mature solid for business , contrary to popular myth cobol is very far from being dead , as most large utility companies and sizable amount of banks still use it , in Lebanon nearly most large service entities (utilities / banks etc.. ) definitely still use it.
the company I work for, we have an accounting package written in mid 80s ;-) , we're still using it everyday , we did try some mdern none cobol stuff , we didn't get better result so we simply returned to good old cobol .
oh and remember the cobol moniker , cobol has the largest number of applications lines than any other language .