Welcome to ECN Forex Brokers - Lists, Reviews, and More on Today's ECNs

The foreign exchange (or Forex, FX) brokerage industry has evolved.

Little more than a half decade ago, retail Forex brokers arrived on the scene, and promised average citizen with access to the once nearly-exclusive market on which the world's largest financial institutions exchanged the world's various national currencies with each other.

At the beginning, brokers were free to do as they chose -- and they did. Bucket shop practices (brokers pocketing the losses made by their own clients; creating a major conflict of interest) which were long outlawed in centralized markets (like stocks, bonds, and options) became commonplace once again in the retail foreign exchange industry.

Today, most of the Forex trading community refers to the first generation of "Bucket shop" brokers as Dealing Desk brokers. And ECN brokers are the alternative for today's retail off-exchange currency traders.



The Impact of a Global Community

As the social networks and the online Forex trading discussion forums grew, retail traders connected with each other, and word about the old Dealing Desk brokers' practices were exposed. Like any industry, the service providers must evolve with the demands of their customer base -- and every broker on the planet began to advertise as "No Dealing Desk", "STP" (straight through processing), and "ECN" (electronic communications networks).

So what exactly is an ECN Forex Broker?