Retail brokerage FXOpen announced the launch of new MetaTrader5 (MT5) trading accounts this Wednesday. Traders switching over to the new accounts can import their trading history from both their existing MT5 or MT4 accounts.
The broker says that has added Percentage Allocation Master Module (PAMM) trading accounts for its clients that use the newest version of the popular Trading Platform .
PAMM accounts allow traders to access a form of social trading. If I use a PAMM account, it means I can copy the trades that another, probably more experienced trader is performing.
For FXOpen's clients, PAMM accounts create a set of separate funds. That means that, if I have $200 in my account and I put $100 into a PAMM account, that money will be separated from the remaining $100 that I deposited.
FXOpen PAMM ECN
According to FXOpen, the new accounts will be trading on an electronic communication network (ECN).
That means traders should, in theory, be trading on the interbank market. This may not seem like a big deal, but most retail brokers continue to operate a b-book business model in which they take the other side of their clients' trades.
Demand for ECN services has increased dramatically in recent years. With retail traders, especially in Europe, having a greater understanding of market structures, there has been an uptick in the number of brokers seeking to offer an ECM model.
Of course, there is always the chance that a broker says it is operating an ECN model when it isn't doing anything of the kind.
FXCM gained a level of notoriety in this regard. The broker used to say that it operates an ECN model but, when the company effectively collapsed in 2015, it was revealed that most orders were being routed to a different company that, though it had a different name, was owned by FXCM.
