Why Active Managers Need a New Approach to Terminals in 2026, Not Bigger Bills

Legacy terminals like Bloomberg and FactSet still dominate — with payments of $200k-$300k a year for a 10-person desk – all while industry surveys consistently show typical terminal usage of only 20–30%. Castine RMS changes that: a focused, AI-powered research hub that delivers what you actually need at a fraction of the cost — freeing capital for alpha, talent, and growth.

The Opportunity in ETF Dominance and Fee Compression

The asset management industry in 2026 is challenging but full of potential. Low-cost passive ETFs with expense ratios as low as 0.03–0.10% lead investor preferences and capture most new capital inflows — creating pressure, but also opening doors for active managers who adapt smartly.

Industry Analyses Point to Paths Forward

Recent reports highlight the challenges but also show clear opportunities: 

• Deloitte’s2026 Investment Management Outlook describes a landscape where profit growth is achievable through differentiation, smart cost discipline, and AI’s accelerating role in building competitive advantages. 
• EY’s 2026 Future of Asset Management Study outlines a clear path: firms that grow aggressively while cutting costs efficiently, innovate boldly while preserving client trust, and broaden offerings while delivering value will lead.
• S&P Global Ratings’ 2026 Asset Manager Sector View projects stable overall performance supported by market resilience and modest real GDP growth — with disciplined firms thriving through partnerships, private credit growth, and emerging opportunities despite ongoing fee pressure. 

Thin Margins and the Power of Efficiency That Castine Brings 

For many active managers today, margins are under pressure and will remain thin as revenue growth lags AUM expansion amid pricing competition. Inflation, rising tech demands, and the challenge of outperforming in a passive-heavy market sharpen the focus on expense control. In this environment, Castine RMS helps you turn this into a growth advantage by delivering targeted tools that reduce unnecessary spend, streamline workflows, and strengthen your alpha edge.

The Hidden Drain: High-Cost Data Platforms and Too Many Different Tools

Traditional financial data terminals remain essential for institutional-grade insights, but their pricing and bundled nature create unnecessary burdens in a margin-constrained era.  Key platforms include: 

• Bloomberg Terminal: ~$24,000–$32,000 per user/year. 
• FactSet: Starting ~$12,000 annually. 
• S&P Capital IQ: $15,000–$25,000 depending on modules. 
• Refinitiv Eikon (LSEG): $18,000–$22,000 range.

  A typical 10-analyst team can spend $200K–$300K+ annually across these tools — before add-ons, training, maintenance, or the inefficiencies of managing multiple vendors.  This leads to using too many different tools: overlapping subscriptions, redundant data, integration challenges, and fragmented workflows. Analysts waste hours switching contexts, manually uploading/tagging content, and hunting for insights across silos.  Crucially, most users leverage only a small fraction of the vast data and functionality these terminals provide while paying premium prices for capabilities they rarely touch, while core research needs remain underserved.  Castine RMS solves this by aggregating, organizing, and contextualizing the data and content you actually use, eliminating redundant tools and streamlining workflows, so you pay less while gaining more focused, actionable intelligence. 

Enter Castine RMS: Purpose-Built for Research Efficiency

Castine, with more than 20 years of expertise in research and commission management solutions, has evolved its Research Management System (RMS) to help you address your research and terminal needs with its focus on delivering the tools you need for a price that resets the fees discussions.   Unlike full-service terminals, Castine RMS targets daily frustrations: research overload, data silos, manual organization, fragmented discovery, and inefficient collaboration. 

Core capabilities include: 

• One central place for everything — Bring together all your internal notes, presentations, emails, documents, calendars, recommendations, sell-side research, filings, transcripts, press releases, market data, fundamentals, and custom datasets — no more hunting across folders or platforms. 

• Unrivaled reference & market/fundamental data backbone — Access over 3 million global corporates, funds, and legal entities (45 million+ data points), 6 million+ financial instruments with real-time prices, deep historical coverage, full financial statements, key ratios, earnings insights, corporate actions, and macro data — so you get deep, reliable context without paying legacy terminal costs. 

• Generative AI summarization & chat — Instantly summarize long documents, notes, emails, and research reports into clear, actionable takeaways — grasp key points and implications in seconds instead of hours. 

• Seamless Microsoft Office integration — Upload, tag, and organize research instantly from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, or your calendar — capture ideas the moment they happen, without leaving your daily tools. 

• Precision search — Lightning-fast, highly relevant results across all your documents, notes, emails, research, and data — with exact matches on tickers, ISINs, LEIs, or any keyword — so you find exactly what you need in seconds, never missing critical details or wasting hours hunting. 

• Intelligent workflows & pipelines — Automate repetitive tasks and streamline end-to-end processes with dynamic grids, customizable dashboards, and structured pipelines that turn insights into immediate action — track investment ideas, coverage, and ESG engagements from first spark to final execution, eliminating manual steps, accelerating decisions, and keeping your team laser-focused on high-value work that drives returns. 

• Customizable views, dashboards & real-time notifications — Personalize your workspace and dashboards to focus on what drives returns, combine internal notes, market data, external research, and portfolio metrics at a glance, and get instant alerts on market moves, new research, or portfolio changes — cut through noise and never miss something important. 

• Portfolio views — Get complete, real-time snapshots of positions with one-click links to issuers, holdings, supporting documents, and related research — monitor exposures and risks instantly without digging through multiple systems. 

• Entity-centric & relational structure with client model replication — Every note, document, and dataset automatically connects to the right issuers, instruments, hierarchies, and related items — while seamlessly mirroring your existing objects, attributes, relationships, and custom taxonomies — so discovery is intuitive, context-rich, and complete with no dead ends, and you adopt without disruption or expensive re-mapping. 

• Flexible data aggregation via APIs and SFTP — Easily pull in data from any external source — minimize redundant subscriptions, eliminate manual imports, and keep your repository up-to-date and comprehensive without added hassle. 

  This “living ecosystem” approach turns static research management into dynamic intelligence, evolving with your needs — helping you work smarter, faster, and more profitably in 2026’s challenging environment. 

The Role of AI in Modern Research Management 

AI is a game-changer in 2026, scaling from experiments to enterprise tools. Castine RMS leverages this with features that analyze sentiment across sources, predict trends, and automate routine tasks — freeing analysts for strategic work. This aligns with Deloitte’s emphasis on AI as an enabler of differentiation and EY’s call for AI-fluent, adaptive workforces in an era of disruption. 

Real-World Applications: How Firms Are Gaining an Edge 

Consider a $15B active equity manager previously running five Bloomberg Terminals ($150K/year), two FactSet seats ($30K), one S&P Capital IQ ($25K), and one Refinitiv for macro feeds ($40K) — total ~$245K annually. Analysts spent 30–60 minutes daily adding and searching for information across platforms. After switching to Castine RMS as the central hub (with vendor feeds integrated via API), they cut to two Bloomberg, one FactSet, and one S&P license + Castine, saving ~$100K/year — while gaining faster insights.  Industry patterns show 1–3 hours of daily time savings per analyst post-adoption, equating to $50,000–$100,000+ in annual labor cost reductions per team (based on average analyst compensation). Firms report deeper decision-making, reduced cycle times, and better alignment with proprietary models. 

5 Ways Castine RMS Delivers Measurable ROI 

1. Lower Subscription Costs — Estimated 50–80% savings versus comprehensive terminals for research-focused needs; flexible models plus complimentary tools like Castine Virtual for CSA reconciliation reduce overhead. 
2. Vendor Consolidation — Serves as a central hub, rivaling S&P-level coverage to eliminate redundant feeds. 
3. Productivity & Labor Savings — AI and automation deliver 1–3 hours daily per analyst, yielding $50,000–$100,000+ yearly per team (conservative estimate at $150K average analyst comp). 
4. Reduced Compliance Burden — Integrated controls minimize separate software, audits, and regulatory risks. 
5. Scalable for Mid-Sized Firms — Tailored for $10B–$50B AUM players; hundreds of global users with cost-effective scaling. 

 

The Bottom Line: Turn Pressure into Advantage 

In 2026’s dynamic landscape — where active managers must differentiate through AI acceleration, and smarter efficiency — lean operations turn cost pressures into powerful opportunities for growth.  Castine RMS gives you institutional-grade research management without legacy premium costs — so you can finally reallocate dollars to alpha, talent, and client relationships instead of redundant terminals.  If bloated bills, silos, or outdated workflows are holding your team back, don’t wait for another fee cut to force your hand.  Request a personalized demo today at castinellc.com/rms — and discover how Castine can help your firm not just survive, but win.