Dukascopy's history-Dukascopy was created when members of a Forex trading forum decided to join forces and make their own firm. Dukascopy's founders included physicists who developed the platform and finally made prime brokerage available to smaller players. These days Dukascopy pumps $80 billion a day in volume through their platforms and have well over $500 million in customer assets entrusted with them. On March 31st 2009, Dukascopy filed an application to the FINMA (Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority) for the acquisition of a banking license in Switzerland.

Dukascopy's technology- Dukascopy's has an aggregator which pulls prices from Lava FX, Currenex, Hot Spot FXi and also individual banks and hedge funds with full give up capability.This allows you to see and trade on the best bid and ask available between all of these sources. This also provides great liquidity which is why Dukascopy is able to execute high volume trades at one price. Unlike other ECNs you can hedge with Dukascopy. There are no trading restrictions with dukascopy, all sorts of traders are welcome. There is a slippage control setting for news traders built into the platform. In my opinion this is the best ECN platform out there. For automated traders Dukascopy offers Jtrader which allows you to plug in any java based trading system and trade right away. Dukascopy also offers a FIX API if you need that. JForex has all the standard indicators provided on MT4 and a similar layout as well. Dukascopy is currently beta testing MT4 itself and will launch it soon you can demo it now.

Trading conditions- The minimum trade on the Dukascopy system is 1,000 base currency (1 mini lot). Not all the network providers accept orders smaller than 250,000 units (2.5 lots) so it is advisable to trade at least 250,000. the maximum leverage available with DukasCopy is 1:100. Leverage decreases to 1:30 at 1 pm EST on Fridays. Dukascopy will give you a literal margin call on the telephone if you fall below your margin requirement. If your balance reaches 50% of your margin requirement Dukascopy automatically hedges your position for you. The minimum account size has recently been reduced to $1,000 from $50,000 although a higher commission will apply. Bank guarantees start at $100,000 now and allow you to send 20% of the amount you wish to invest and keep the rest at home. Your trading account can be linked to a Swiss custodian bank account. In this case, you trade directly in the Swiss FX Marketplace, without making fund transfer to Dukascopy (the client and the issuing bank have to contact their Account Manager in Dukascopy for further questions). The minimum deposit size for this option is 250 000 USD.

Low commission and big rebate - Perhaps the best thing about Dukascopy is the commission structure. Standard commissions are $18 per million and will be $13.50 ($1.35 per lot) or even less depending on your trading volume. On retail sized accounts commissions are higher but if you trade enough volume on your small account you will receive a commission credit at the end of the month by Dukascopy in addition to our IB rebate. We pay 25% of commissions charged by Dukascopy as a rebate. Obviously, you must open your account by using this link or notify your rep at Dukascopy that we are your IB to receive a rebate. Visit this link for details of commissions paid before IB rebates kick in. Commission breakdown