The financial world is a big place. There's everything from backend systems at banks to stock exchanges, trading houses, stockbrokers, all with different requirements. I think perhaps the most ancient systems are the backend money ones at banks since there's not much money in scraping speed out of them, but I'd love to hear from someone in the field?
Certainly the enterprise stuff at Spanish banks is run on Cobol, and there's still a fair amount of active Cobol development going on. (By enterprise I mean the bread and butter stuff, accounts etc.)
No idea about the trading / derivatives / whatnot, though.
