FXLine

Foreign exchange is a dynamic virtual market where brokers/dealers trade directly with one another, there is no central exchange or clearing house. Large international banks provide the market with both bid and ask prices, the spread between the bid and ask price is small for actively traded currency pairs, often 0-3 pips (points). Many pairs are offered for trading, majors being EUR/USD, EUR/JPY, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, AUD/USD, USD/CAD, USD/CHF.

Trading characteristics
Currency trading is going on 24 hours a day: as the Asian trading session ends, the European session begins, followed by the North American session and then back to the Asian session, excluding weekends. The price of one country’s currency expressed in another country’s currency, Euro, US Dollar, British Pound, Japanese Yen, Swiss Franc, Canadian Dollar and Australian Dollar being most actively traded.

Retail forex brokers
Retail forex brokers count for fraction of the total volume of the global foreign exchange market. Estimated to be about 2% of the total market. The newest trend is toward ECN brokers, where there is no trading desk, all the trading is done electronically thru major banks