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Liquidity Bridge: How to Get Connected?

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Trading in financial markets has developed into a true gold rush of our time, presenting fantastic prospects to boost cash as well as to establish a lucrative forex, cryptocurrency, or other sort of trading-related business. Trading’s intricate infrastructure integrates a number of unique systems and applications to provide a seamless procedure for creating, placing, and carrying out orders. The term “liquidity bridge” refers to a mechanism that links liquidity providers and traders via a trading platform to facilitate transactions.

Liquidity Bridge From A to Z

In a nutshell, through an electronic trading platform similar to MetaTrader 5, liquidity bridge is the software that provides traders with direct access to the global banking market. This platform is made to facilitate trading between a broker and a client; it does not, however, allow for the direct transmission of orders from a trader to market liquidity providers like big brokers, banks, and other financial institutions. With the help of end-to-end processing technology, the liquidity bridge enables traders to receive quotes and liquidity with little to no broker involvement. On the one hand, it offers better transactions, and on the other, it lessens the risks for the brokerage firm. There are two different kinds of liquidity bridges, which correlate to the ECN and STP technologies.

  • ECN Liquidity Bridge

ECN liquidity bridges make it possible to connect clients (traders and financial companies) from geographically dispersed locations, significantly increasing overall turnover, enabling 24-hour trading, and increasing liquidity, all of which have a positive impact on execution speed and spread. Due to the rising popularity of trading among private traders and the greater openness, this system—in which an order from every trader, not just market makers, is posted on the market—is highly progressive. It is important to remember that transparency here relates to transaction volume and pricing rather than the counterparty’s identity. The ECN-system is the official counterparty for all trades. Considering a market maker’s absence from the exchange or OTC market, ECN network is also regarded as an alternative trading system.

  • STP Liquidity Bridge

A liquidity bridge known as STP (Straight Through Processing) enables brokerages to transfer clients’ orders directly to banks that trade on the interbank market as liquidity providers for immediate execution. The more liquidity providers there are, the better the clients’ execution will be. Most traders find this approach to be quite alluring due to the fact that it provides easy access to the real market and allows for quick execution without the involvement of a dealer.

The direct link between the customer and the liquidity provider is the STP liquidity bridge’s key feature. The supplier often pools many liquidity sources, which increases liquidity and leads to better pricing. The STP system gives users the option of fixed or floating spreads. While the major sources of liquidity are huge banks, which give a set spread, the aggregator has the ability to select the best rates among all sale and purchase bids. This may occasionally result in zero or even a negative spread.

Why Is The Liquidity Bridge Essential To The Trade Process?

Notwithstanding the kind of liquidity bridge, this system is crucial for supplying liquidity to the trading floor. Also, brokers receive a number of advantages and benefits from the liquidity bridge.

Direct transactions between clients are, for instance, permitted through the ECN liquidity bridge (system). In this instance, the broker really offers a platform where banks, market-makers, and private traders may engage with one another directly, which occasionally allows transactions to be completed at a lower cost than when utilizing external counterparties. Furthermore, it makes it possible to eliminate trade delays, which, when combined with enough liquidity, results in nearly flawless execution.

As a result of the deployment of a STP liquidity bridge, transactions are free of human error, delays, and expenses because traders aren’t concerned about third parties interfering with their trading activities. As prices are obtained from a number of market players rather than just one liquidity source, a STP liquidity bridge also makes it possible for higher liquidity. Comparatively speaking, a brokerage firm cannot offer better execution, narrower trading spreads, or more accurate quotations when it just has one source for its quotes.

How to Get Connected to Liquidity Bridge?

The STP system, which denotes end-to-end processing of transactions with some automation, is one of the ways that orders are executed under the NDD system.All quotations are given by liquidity providers, which may be several (the more the better).

The client’s order is sent to the associated liquidity provider through direct market access, and from there it is sent to the partner institutions.A few liquidity providers collaborate with the majority of the biggest banks in the world, including Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, and JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The difference between STP and ECN execution is that with the former, the broker has the option of selecting more advantageous terms of the transaction from a variety of liquidity providers, whilst with the latter, everything is carried out automatically. The firm using the STP method is not interested in customer deposit losses, and it is more crucial for the trader to complete trades because the broker only makes money from spreads and fees. The business is interested in more customers, more deals, and the security of deposits. Clients without money are not paid. cTrader, MetaTrader 4 (MT4), and MetaTrader 5 (MT5) are the trading platforms available for opening accounts on this system.

Brokers link to one of the aforementioned liquidity bridges using various services that connect the required infrastructure, enabling the broker to access a variety of liquidity sources, including big banks or businesses that specialize in providing liquidity and associated technology. The connecting procedure is carried out by integrating the necessary software to interact with the service provider into the stock exchange’s infrastructure. Once linked, the broker firm may have a variety of liquidity sources to guarantee seamless trading with low spreads.

Final Claiming

Liquidity is the primary driving factor in every financial market and is an essential component of the trading process. The availability of a steady liquidity bridge as well as a trustworthy liquidity source is critical to the success of a broker firm. With the advancement of technology, new solutions to deliver liquidity from businesses to brokerage houses are predicted, which will surely boost the speed, quality, and efficiency of both individual activities, such as order placing, and trading in general.