⭐ Retail vs Prime vs Interbank Brokers

 

Trying to understand the structure of Forex brokers industry? Who do you trade with? Who CAN you trade with?

 

Retail Forex brokers (the vast majority of brokers on the market you've met) are here to serve retails traders, e.g. regular traders, me and you.

Majority of traders can have access only to Retail Forex brokers. 

This rule is mostly defined by the amount of Deposit most of retail traders are able to make to start trading Forex.

Retail Forex brokers are able to accommodate lower deposit amounts than any other higher hierarchy broker.

 

Prime brokers - they represent the minority.

These are larger brokers who have direct access to the Interbank, have large company capital and operate on an institutional level. Prime brokers would selectively accept professional retail clients, and the minimum deposit requirement would be very high (very high for any beginner trader), starting from around $50,000 USD minimum deposit. 

So, yes, this level would be oftentimes unreachable to retail clients.

 

And lastly Interbank level.

Home to large banks, hedge & investment funds, other "financial giants".

As you may guess, retail clients can't trade there. This is the "beehive" of all financial operations. True Prime brokers (not "pretend to be" ones), have access to this level.