A Forex trading broker is organized as either a dealing desk (also called market makers) or a non-dealing desk. In the first case, the Forex broker literally creates a market by mirroring the quotation from the interbank market and deals the prices to its clients. In the second case, the Foreign exchange broker routes its clients orders to the liquidity provider, and from the liquidity pool the best quote is offered to its retail clients.
Brokers organized like non-dealing houses often offer ECN (Electronic Communication Network) or STP (Straight-Through Protocol) execution. However, different types of brokers exist, as many of them mix dealing with non-dealing conditions, becoming a hybrid Forex broker in the end.
Depending on the type of the brokerage house, different account types exist. ECN accounts, STP accounts, fixed spreads, variable spreads, etc, are just a few examples.
But the most impressive thing about the current Forex brokers is that they ceased to be just a Forex brokerage house. Nowadays, the Forex brokerage accounts give access not only to the currency market, but also to various other financial markets around the world (e.g. commodities – oil, gold, silver; indices – Dow Jones, S&P500; various other CFDs).
More importantly, traders have access to all these markets from the same trading account. As a result, traders benefit from further diversification options for their positions and more trading opportunities.