PrimeXM Broker - Market Makers or Liquidity Providers?

A curious question to whom it concerns. If a broker's MT4 terminal's IP is located at PrimeXM, does it mean they are connected to actual liquidity providers or could they be market makers?

PrimeXM is the bridge to MT4 - what happens before the bridge connection is where the LP's sit or don't .

Metatrader 4 was at first made for market maker brokers which will internalise all the flow as in they will profit from you when you lose. Meaning the platform used to be targeted for beginners or gamblers. They used to have all kind of cunning tricks like the infamous virtual dealer plug in. Nowadays, after gaining popularity with traders all over the world we have bridge providers that try to connect mt4 to the real interbank market for example PrimeXM, OneZero etc. Most of the top retail brokers have A and B book. A book is where they send the orders to the liquidity providers and B book is where they internalise the flow. They know the majority of their clients will lose hence it makes more sense to have the flow themselves. This is alright if they don't mess up with the prices.

Most like metatrader because of the simplicity of the platform. Now, metatrader is no longer only for beginners because it can be used to connect to the interbank via the bridge. Personally, when i have graduated from retail trading i would still use metatrader as my GUI and connect it to an aggregator. PrimeXM is one of the bridge which connect MT4 to liquidity providers via FIX API. I hope metatrader 6 will be the real deal with all aspects being taken care of. They have to, because ctrader and protrader are slowly gaining traction. Metatrader 5 was a disappointment for me personally because of FIFO. Many traders need the hedging capability. If they had just not implement FIFO to be fixed in MT5 i believe many traders would have migrated.

Liquidity providers can be banks or non bank firms like virtu, citadel etc. They are market makers and will internalise clients flow and offset them with clients and each other. As for liquidity providers this is of no concern because they have big balance sheets to internalise the flow. Internalisation by the banks are important for the market to ensure its efficiency. When there are no one trading, banks have the obligation to ensure the market will always run by accepting buyers and sellers even through the difficult periods.

I hope that helps

primeXM is a technology provider. Don't shoot the technology provider.

I emailed PrimeXM and they replied in no time. I received 2 replies actually and since there is no sensitive info, I'm posting the replies here:

Dear Amin,

Thank you for your enquiry.

To be honest we do provide WL solutions on MT4, however our main business is providing Bridge Aggregation services to Banks, LP's, FX Brokers & Fund/Asset Management firms.

Any Broker that is connected via our WL solution has to have at least 1 real LP connected for Pricing and Trading, (although many have multiple LP's/Banks). However, it is up to the Broker themselves whether they STP all orders or have a mix of A and B Book. So there is a possibility for a Broker to market make.

You would need to speak to the individual Brokers themselves to enquire whether they are a full STP Broker or not. We cannot disclose such information due to client confidentiality. At the end of the day as long as you get the very best spreads and fast execution from any of these Brokers, in reality it makes no difference to the individual traders whether they are market making or not.

I hope this info has been of help.

Kind regards




Hi Amin,

Thank you for your email.

You are correct, PrimeXM do offer White Label solutions amongst other services.

However, PrimeXM prides ourselves with providing Banks/Liquidity Providers/Forex Brokers/Money & Fund Managers one of the quickest Bridge Aggregation systems on the market (XCore). Various financial institutes acquire PrimeXM's XCore system internally, to provide the highest level service to their clients, in terms of execution and connectivity services.

Our XCore supports over 85+ FIX API Connections to various Banks and Liquidity Providers, for which the XCore client (FX Broker, Money Manager, Bank etc) can source liquidity directly and negotiate their own terms. PrimeXM is not a liquidity provider, our system supports over 85 different Banks/LP's, but we do not actually get involved or intervene with the liquidity side of things. From the 85 Banks and LP's, PrimeXM works very closely with 10 Preferred Liquidity Partners, for which we are their preferred technology vendor, and they are our preferred partners when it comes to promoting liquidity services, to our XCore clients.

PrimeXM bring no conflict of interest to our clients who acquire our aggregation services. We sit transparently in the middle, and do not charge the Banks/LP's on both sides (XCore client & Bank/LP). Hence not charging the Banks, the client is able to negotiate tighter spreads and lower commissions per million, by using our XCore system.

I cannot discuss the setup and configuration settings of our clients, due to Data Protection reasons. However, I can confirm that some of our clients are in fact MM (Market Makers) and we have other clients who act as a full STP Broker and Straight Through Process (STP) the orders to market.


Best Regards

It is the belief of some (which admittedly may not be correct) that there are no brokers that are 100% STP. Even if technically they do pass all orders through the bridge you need to ask where the orders are being passed to. It is possible that the orders are passed on to a market maker broker that is owned by the STP broker. It is also possible that pure STP brokers pass all trades through a bridge to a market maker that gives them a share of the clients net losses. Ok, this is speculation but it just goes to show that there is no point for traders to get too hung up on this point.

The bottom line is you never really know what is happening and even the bridge providers don't have a 100% clear picture. All I know is that as long as the broker offers market execution (in MT4), does not requote you, and executes your trades within milliseconds you can categorize them as an STP broker. Other than that as long as brokers are honest and honor their trades it really shouldnt make any difference so its probably best not to get too hung up on the exact process.

There is manual by Metaquotes "How to start brokerage" and they clearly saying that as a retail broker you have to take other side for some or most or your clients. Because pure STP model requires huge volumes to make money.
I would say it's just a question that percentage of orders stays with broker and that percentage is transferred somewhere else - to so called LP's or
MM for you broker. In my opinion - all FX is based on market making.

I really dont understand how the market works. There are so many pools, bridges, providers to liquidity, etc, etc. I can not imagine that Barclays for example has connected to all these so called pools, providers........ everybody claims that has its own LP panel of well known banks. I don' t believe in it. It's a big black box. May be everything is more simle ? May be everybody is Market Makers and use price feed for indicative purposes?