Description: The Foreign Exchange Market (FOREX) can only be accessed by phone or by electronic network. The advantage of not having a central location, but instead having an electronic network, is that the Forex can operate 24 hours a day. In fact, it is open for trading all day and night during work days, roughly 5 days a week.
In the past, one of the distinctive features that distinguish an ECN Broker from other brokers is its proprietary trading platform. Especially designed to work with its exclusive network of liquidity providers and support their other backroom services, these platforms proved to be too techie and complicated for the ordinary trader to handle.
Retail forex traders have been known to prefer user-friendly platform that is easy to use and will definitely shy away from the complicated ones. As a testament to this phenomenon, you will easily notice the unparalleled popularity of the Meta Trader 4 – a highly navigable, truly functional, user friendly trading platform created by a third party provider. The platform is so convenient to use that a significant number of MT4 users have developed a sentimental attachment to it.
As it is, however, MT4 cannot be used to work with the electronic networks of ECN brokers. It requires an API or a special programming interface to get it working with their network. Bowing to the clamor of a growing number of retail traders, developers created the MT4 ECN Bridge which is basically a programmed interface which enables clients to access their networks using the MT4 platform. Other brokers followed suit and developed their own custom APIs.