MIG Bank has just launched a new campaign aimed at explaining its execution model. Basically they claim to be using similar to FXCM's agency model - where banks 'compete' for prices and clients only execute with them. I don't have any intimate knowledge of how exactly it works at MIG but I can safely say that no broker whatsoever passes 100% of deals to    Liquidity   Liquidity Liquidity is at the core of every broker’s offering. It is a basic characteristic of every financial asset - be it a currency, stock, bond, commodity or real estate. The more liquid an asset is, the easier it is to sell and buy on the open market. Foreign exchange is considered to be the most liquid asset class.Brokers can source liquidity from a single or multiple source, thereby delivering to their clients enough market depth for their orders to get filled. The main characteristic of liquidity is its depth, which will determine how quickly and how big of an order can be executed via the trading platform.Understanding LiquidityLiquidity can be internal or external depending on the size and the book of the broker. Companies which are large enough and have material client flows consistently are creating their own liquidity pools from the order flow of their clients, thereby internalizing flows and saving on costs to send customer orders to the interbank market. By doing that however they are exposing themselves to carry the risk on the trade.Liquidity providers can be prime brokers, prime of primes, other brokers or the broker’s book itself. Traditionally brokers are split between internalizing flows and offloading trades of their clients to different liquidity providers.Generally, retail brokers and their clients prefer more liquid assets which lead to better fill rates and less slippage. When there is lack of liquidity on a certain market, slippage can occur - the order is executed at a price which is the closest available to the one requested by the client. Liquidity is at the core of every broker’s offering. It is a basic characteristic of every financial asset - be it a currency, stock, bond, commodity or real estate. The more liquid an asset is, the easier it is to sell and buy on the open market. Foreign exchange is considered to be the most liquid asset class.Brokers can source liquidity from a single or multiple source, thereby delivering to their clients enough market depth for their orders to get filled. The main characteristic of liquidity is its depth, which will determine how quickly and how big of an order can be executed via the trading platform.Understanding LiquidityLiquidity can be internal or external depending on the size and the book of the broker. Companies which are large enough and have material client flows consistently are creating their own liquidity pools from the order flow of their clients, thereby internalizing flows and saving on costs to send customer orders to the interbank market. By doing that however they are exposing themselves to carry the risk on the trade.Liquidity providers can be prime brokers, prime of primes, other brokers or the broker’s book itself. Traditionally brokers are split between internalizing flows and offloading trades of their clients to different liquidity providers.Generally, retail brokers and their clients prefer more liquid assets which lead to better fill rates and less slippage. When there is lack of liquidity on a certain market, slippage can occur - the order is executed at a price which is the closest available to the one requested by the client. Read this Term providers and I mean NONE. Most brokers put large or profitable traders on STP servers while dealing against smaller or less profitable clients. And if you think of it this model makes sense as you can't really pass small deals to banks (MIG lists almost 20 of them) as they naturally don't really deal with small clients. Good execution for smaller trades for now can only happen through a market maker but this obviously creates other types of problems.

However MIG claims full transparency which is what set me off - although they do list their    Liquidity Providers  Liquidity Providers A liquidity provider (LP) constitutes either individual and/or institution that functions as a market maker in a given asset class. Broadly speaking, liquidity providers will act as the both the buyer and seller of a particular asset, thus making a market. In the equities space, many stock exchanges rely on liquidity providers who make the commitment to provide liquidity in a given equity. These liquidity providers commit to providing liquidity in the hopes that they will be able to make a profit on the bid-ask spread.In doing so, these entities theoretically ensure greater price stability and also improve liquidity by making it easier for traders to buy and sell at any price level. Market liquidity providers also oversee an important service and take on a significant amount of risk.However, these are still able to profit from the spread or by positioning themselves on the basis of the valuable information available to them.Analyzing Liquidity Providers Relationship with BrokersIn addition, liquidity providers also delivering interbank market access to retail brokers. They are typically large multinational investment banks, or other financial institutions that can be non-bank entities. Each liquidity provider is streaming executable rates to the broker whose aggregator engine is selecting the best bid and ask and streams it to clients to deliver the best possible spread.The broker is the direct counterparty to all trades executed with the liquidity provider and typically only uses them to offload flows which it finds uneconomical to internalize. That said, some brokers are sending all of their flow to liquidity providers.Liquidity providers have a set of characteristics which are determining their suitability and reliability - such are order rejection rates, spreads, and latency. Brokers which aren’t monitoring the flow adequately are risking to deliver to their clients’ bad fills, which consequently result in customer complaints since the customer is consistently not getting the displayed or requested price. A liquidity provider (LP) constitutes either individual and/or institution that functions as a market maker in a given asset class. Broadly speaking, liquidity providers will act as the both the buyer and seller of a particular asset, thus making a market. In the equities space, many stock exchanges rely on liquidity providers who make the commitment to provide liquidity in a given equity. These liquidity providers commit to providing liquidity in the hopes that they will be able to make a profit on the bid-ask spread.In doing so, these entities theoretically ensure greater price stability and also improve liquidity by making it easier for traders to buy and sell at any price level. Market liquidity providers also oversee an important service and take on a significant amount of risk.However, these are still able to profit from the spread or by positioning themselves on the basis of the valuable information available to them.Analyzing Liquidity Providers Relationship with BrokersIn addition, liquidity providers also delivering interbank market access to retail brokers. They are typically large multinational investment banks, or other financial institutions that can be non-bank entities. Each liquidity provider is streaming executable rates to the broker whose aggregator engine is selecting the best bid and ask and streams it to clients to deliver the best possible spread.The broker is the direct counterparty to all trades executed with the liquidity provider and typically only uses them to offload flows which it finds uneconomical to internalize. That said, some brokers are sending all of their flow to liquidity providers.Liquidity providers have a set of characteristics which are determining their suitability and reliability - such are order rejection rates, spreads, and latency. Brokers which aren’t monitoring the flow adequately are risking to deliver to their clients’ bad fills, which consequently result in customer complaints since the customer is consistently not getting the displayed or requested price. Read this Term there's not much transparency beyond that. We do not see any hard numbers of execution or spreads amid the recent transparency trend sweeping the industry. My understanding is that MIG doesn't disclose whether your deal was executed with any of its LPs and with whom exactly. There's just this vague phrase which cannot help but make you think why is it there in the first place: "The prices obtained by us from our liquidity providers are 100% transparent and can be disclosed to you at anytime." The prices CAN be disclosed?

Bottom line, until MIG really shows exactly with whom the deal was executed and what the B-book is, there's no transparency here and it is certainly not a Revolution.

MIG Bank, the worlds first Forex broker to become a Swiss bank, is again at the forefront of innovation by offering a revolutionary new Fully Transparent Dealing model.

In order to ensure MIG BANK's clients get the highest possible liquidity and best market prices, MIG BANK works with a pool of liquidity providers, consisting of major prime banks. These liquidity providers compete to offer MIG BANK their best prices for the clients order execution.

MIG BANK explains the transparency model further, "The prices we obtain from our liquidity providers are 100% transparent and can be disclosed to our clients at anytime. Our advanced IT infrastructure and price aggregator system allow us to constantly receive quotes from all of our liquidity providers, instantaneously analyze them and identify the best price available to fill our client orders."

MIG BANK goes onto say, "We then add our mark-up and execute our clients orders at the best market price in a matter of milliseconds with no dealer or human involvement."