Most foreign exchange brokers offering accounts to retail traders operate in one of 2 ways. It is unlikely that you’re going to be enrolling with a broker who has their own dealing desk. Rather more likely, you will be looking at either an ECN broker or a market maker. You can often improve costs from an ECN broker but take a detailed look at their fee structure and consider what it might mean to you on a normal deal.

ECN brokers are commonly better for scalpers and will even welcome them because they’re dealing directly with a massive market. They also are usually well regulated.

On the other hand, the variable spread can suggest more uncertainty when setting stop losses and limit orders. ECN brokers also tend to offer fewer charts and may have a less user friendly trading platform because they are not in particular planning to attract amateurs. They tend to say that you know what you are doing and have a paid subscription to do your technical research somewhere else.