Since 1996, when retail forex trading was first introduced, several brokers who lacked the sufficient tools developed their own trading platforms tailored specifically to their needs. The 1st retail FX brokers were MG Forex, The Matchbook FX ECN, GFT, CMC Markets, Saxo Bank (then known as Midas) and a handful of others. Most except CMC, Saxo & Matchbook FX were based on the ACT forex trading technology & GUI. These platforms were good enough at the time but required constant investments in R&D and this development cost too much. This was the first wave.

The second wave was in the early 2000s: several software companies entered the retail forex trading market forex market by launching their own versions of trading platforms.Like Apbg Group & Ctn Systems Typically these versions were cumbersome for both front-end users (retail traders) and back-end users (retail brokers) due to the misunderstanding of the developers about the and also because of the insufficient programming tools/languages at the time. Simultaneously most of the retail brokers kept using and developing their own systems as they waited for better platforms which were yet to be developed.

There are currently few to no brokers which were part of the first wave trading systems. By now most of the first wave brokers have either vanished, merged or progressed to the second wave trading platforms – the most common example of which is MetaTrader 4 from MetaQuotes.

It is only in the last couple of years that the advanced trading platforms started to emerge. These platforms put much stronger emphasis on the user interface (GUI) making it more accessible to the retail traders while making trading on it very simple and intuitive. Moreover a very strong emphasis was put on the back-end which allowed the retail brokers better control over their operations, better reporting and accurate system and ways to manage marketing campaigns. Gradually this wave is replacing the previous second wave with a major shift now to the friendlier and more intuitive systems of the third wave which according to Aite Group are necessary in order to maintain growth [3].

Nowadays, banks have also jumped on the retail forex trading platform bandwagon and have started offering those services to individual traders and money mangers, expanding the forex trading appeal. DBFX and Citibank are some of the banks that are currently offering this service.