ECN Forex Brokers

An ECN broker allows you to place your buy and sell orders directly in the market against other traders, banks and financial institutions.

Depth of Market (DOM)

You can monitor your orders and theirs over a Depth of Market (DOM) display, also known as a Depth of Market monitor.

Depth of Market (DOM) shows you the liquidity available for every bid and offer. DOM is available for every currency pair and changes dynamically as orders are filled and new orders come to market. It usually appears in a small monitor directly in your trading platform’s interface.

Changes in liquidity typically pre-date changes in exchanges rates. They tend to rise when there are more buyers than sellers, and vice versa. Scalpers use Depth of Market information to predict how prices are likely to change in the very near term.

Order matching

Participants in an ECN can enter competing bids and offers into the platform either inside or outside the spread, and hit one another's orders. You could open a position with a liquidity provider and close it with another, or execute a trade against the bid or offer of another trader.

ECN brokers earn money through a commission on trades rather than a mark-up on spreads. This is why they typically quote spreads as lows as 0 pips. is an exception to the rule in that it allows you to choose between commission-based accounts and commission-free accounts. FXCC spreads in our comparison table are for commission-free accounts.

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