The financial industry’s indispensable tool – the Bloomberg Terminal – may have developed a chink in its armor, as competing products and services from Thomson Reuters and Markit give it a run for its money.

Bankers, traders, fund managers and others got spooked when Bloomberg admitted its reporters had access to terminal usage data they used to write stories. Data privacy concerns and cost – $20,000 per year per Bloomberg terminal – appear to be increasing the attractiveness of alternate options, Quartz reported today:

Not everyone needs a Bloomberg. Bloomberg terminals cost around $20,000 per year, something Wall Street has long seen as a necessary evil. But maybe no longer. “For some big banks, it’s an incredibly expensive instant messaging device,” an executive at one market infrastructure company told the Financial Times (paywall). “They’re saying, ‘we’re spending $120m a year on Bloomberg. That needs to come down’.”