“Online Forex Trading“ isn’t something with long history.

Over 20 years ago where no computers were available, no one was trading Forex or CFDs but only someone with extremely wealthy funds.

It has actually started about 20 years ago.

Before 1995, Forex trading was restricted, or it wan’t available for any retail investors. Only someone or an entity with money could trade, such as Hedge Funds, Central Banks, Financial Institutions and extremely wealthy individuals.

There was of course no internet web available for people before then, they were trading on paper or phone calls with physical contracts that needed to be delivered.

Internet came in

With the emergence of the internet, Forex trading has become more accessible for many people.

Web-based technology, “Online Trading Platforms” were made by some companies, and retail traders were finally able to start trading Forex online.

But still there wasn’t any retail aggregators for huge liquidity providers, as in the technology was at the lower level comparing to now. Each financial broker was market making for its clients.

This is why some Forex brokers with long history(like more than 10 years) are mostly Market Makers.

Technology developed

In the 21^st century, the technology was much more developed and the internet web was all over.

Forex brokers were aggregating liquidities by acting as a middleman between retail clients and larger foreign exchange dealers such as mega-banks.

Forex brokers with STP(Straight Through Processing) trading environment has appeared in the market too.

Now that there are nearly one thousand of Forex brokers in the world and dozens of millions of retail Forex traders online.

As you can imagine, the Forex market has just started and now growing rapidly. A few years later, the standard of Forex brokers now, may not be something usual anymore.