Which of these programming languages is the most suitable for a business data processing?

Different programming languages were designed with different purposes in mind, and choosing the right one depends on the type of task being solved.

COBOL stands for Common Business-Oriented Language. It was specifically designed in the late 1950s for business, administrative, and financial applications such as payroll processing, billing, and inventory management. Its syntax is close to plain English and it handles large volumes of records and file-based data efficiently, which is exactly what business data processing requires.

The other languages listed were built for different purposes. BASIC was created as a simple language for teaching beginners how to program. ALGOL was designed mainly for expressing scientific and mathematical algorithms and strongly influenced later languages, but it was not aimed at commercial data processing. FORTRAN (Formula Translation) was built for scientific and engineering calculations involving complex numerical computation, not for managing business records.

When a question mentions business data processing, look for the language whose name or design purpose is explicitly tied to commerce; COBOL's own name is the clearest signal.