Regulation
Most reputable online forex brokers take the step of submitting to regulation by one of the main financial regulatory agencies operating in their home country. Sometimes, they will even be regulated by more than one agency. Such regulation provides you with the security of knowing the broker's operations are being overseen by an independent authority with the goal of keeping the business honest.
Data Security
When you either enter or store vital personal information online, it can be subject to falling into unfriendly hands that may use it for their own personal gain. Accordingly, a top priority when choosing a broker is that they encrypt all data entered into online forms using industry standard SSL-encryption or better.
Another key issue involves the safe storage of data so that it will not be lost in case of disaster. Many online forex brokers use duplicate data farms with high security to assure the safety of your account information.
Dealing Spreads
Many day trading strategies become unsuccessful over the long term if your account does not have access to competitive dealing spreads. The spread is simply the difference between the bid price and the offer price for a particular currency pair and should be no greater than five pips in the majors and major crosses, with wider spreads often seen in the minor crosses and exotic currencies.
Commissions and Fees
Sometimes brokers are not content just to have you dealing on their spreads. In this case, they might charge a commission or fee for each transaction. Sometimes these are calculated on a per transaction basis or on a volume dealt basis. Additional fees might be involves in making withdrawals or deposits, so be sure to check that information to minimize your transaction costs.
Order Types
Most forex brokers handle the basic market, stop and limit order types. Nevertheless, some brokers also offer support for OCO (one-cancels-the-other) and trailing stops. If either of these more specialized order types would be suitable for your trading plan, then be sure that your chosen broker supports them and make sure that you fully understand the limitiation of these different order types.
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