Integrating technology from 50 years ago with the 21st century is no easy task. One can't, for example, readily sync an iPod with a gramophone, upload a document to a typewriter or text a friend from a phone box. Yet much of the technology that underpins the day-to-day running of our financial system is inextricably linked to an innovation which celebrates its fiftieth anniversary this year.

In 1959, the Pentagon laid down the guidelines that would form the basis of Cobol (COmmon Business-Oriented Language). While such a prominent building will no doubt have played host to more momentous conferences, few, if any, will have gone on to have such a marked influence on the future of business technology. Over the following decades, Cobol developed an almost ubiquitous relationship with enterprise IT. As financial corporations and government departments increased their reliance on digital information, underpinning the IT infrastructures of virtually every major organisation were large, reliable Cobol-based applications.

As a result, Cobol is everywhere, yet is largely unheard of among the millions of people who interact with it on a daily basis. Recent research shows that people in the UK interact with Cobol at least 10 times every working day. Yet, despite using the technology so often, only 18% of those surveyed had ever actually heard of it. The same research in the US shows the average American relies on Cobol even more, at 13 times every day. The majority of Cobol interactions can be attributed to financial transactions, from using a cash machine, booking a holiday or billing the calls on your mobile phone. Its reach is so pervasive that it is almost unthinkable to go a day without it.

The statistics that surround Cobol attest to its huge influence upon the business and financial world. There are over 220 billion lines of Cobol in existence, a figure that equates to around 80% of the world's actively used code. There are estimated to be over a million Cobol programmers in the world today. Most impressive perhaps, is that 200 times as many Cobol transactions take place each day than Google searches - a figure that puts the influence of Web 2.0 into stark perspective.

Every year, Cobol systems are responsible for transporting up to 72,000 shipping containers, caring for 60 million patients, processing 80% of point-of-sales transactions and connecting 500 million mobile phone users. Cobol manages our train timetables, air traffic control systems, holiday bookings and supermarket stock controls. And the list could go on.

Despite the advent of new technologies, computing languages and platforms over the last 50 years, many core banking systems still run on Cobol. Why? Because it still works. Simple as that. But what made Cobol such a success in the first place? Why, despite doomsayers confidently predicting its demise for the past 30 years, does it continue to proliferate? The simplest answer to this question is just that: simplicity. Ever since the idea was hatched five decades ago, Cobol aimed to provide a common standard for programmers based on the use of plain English, simplifying coding for developers and businesses alike. Cobol programmers appreciate this, not to mention the fact that it is a better guarantee of employment than almost any other IT specialism.

The versatility of Cobol has also played a part in its abundance and longevity. Applications first developed to run on IBM System 700 mainframes are now being readied to move onto an Amazon or Microsoft cloud computing platform. Cobol's propensity for modernisation is unparalleled, making it not only effective but also cost-effective. In 2009's turbulent economic climate, modernising existing Cobol systems is an attractive prospect for CIOs looking to ‘do more with less'.

Perhaps most crucially though, Cobol systems dating back a number of decades still exist today because of the immense investment of hours and resources which have been spent on them during this time. Because of their longevity, these systems have evolved with the business, and become crucial corporate assets in their own right. Given the competitive advantage these bespoke systems provide, they are far more than just a cost on the balance sheet. Put simply, if Cobol systems can continue to perform business-critical tasks efficiently and reliably, then there is no reason why they may not continue to do so for another fifty years.

So is there no end in sight for Cobol's supremacy? Is the language which has so dominated the last five decades of computing set to continue to do so for the next half century? Having shrugged off the over-hyped threat of the Millennium Bug with consummate ease, it would seem the main risk facing Cobol in the 21st century is finding and training enough professionals to maintain all 220 billion lines.

Recent research has shown that less than a third of CIOs (29%) believe they are recruiting enough core IT assets specialists. Whilst IT leaders have grasped the value of these vital software assets and realised that modernisation is a cheaper and less risky strategy than replacement, finding sufficient numbers to fulfil this need is proving increasingly difficult. With many computer science students opting to learn web 2.0 skills, and many of those who are proficient reaching retirement age, Cobol's success and longevity are almost proving a hindrance to its long-term survival.

Ensuring Cobol remains a crucial part of the IT skills set must be a key priority for business, government and academia alike over the coming years, as the effects of a serious shortage could be disastrous. The cost of re-writing Cobol programs is estimated at around $25 per line. With over 200 billion such lines in existence, it doesn't take a mathematician to work out that this would be a heavy cost for business to bear, let alone the disruption to operations caused by lengthy re-write programmes.

The need for skills is all the more apparent given that Cobol has reached yet another critical juncture in its evolution. The advent of Cloud computing is the latest step which the language will have to take if its influence is to continue in the 21st century, yet one that it seems equal to.

Cobol applications have continually shown their ability to adapt to new platforms, and the emergence of the Cloud should prove no different. While the Cloud has the potential to revolutionise the way information technology is delivered, it is the applications which run on these platforms which will continue to perform the functions most valuable to the business. While new platforms may come and go, these core systems maintain their role at the very heart of the business. Despite being written off as defunct on countless occasions, Cobol and the applications which run on it continue to play a huge role in enterprise computing. From relatively humble beginnings, Cobol has become the code which has defined the digital age, and a world without Cobol would be quite unrecognisable from the one which we know today.

Cobol emerged at the very birth of the computer industry so it is no surprise that the financial sector - as one of the first industries to embrace the benefits of computers - is an prolific Cobol user. Yet despite numerous other languages' attempts to steal its crown over the last half century, none have proved to be as well-suited to their tasks as Cobol.

In a time when the rate of technological and business change appears to increase by the day, it seems remarkable that the technology which underpins the majority of the world's financial systems is now fifty years old. However, to those who work closely with Cobol, it is much less of a surprise.

Nick Bray is chief financial officer at Micro Focus