Forex Broker Setup: Continuing from Licensing to Launch

This guide picks up where our previous article on licensing left off. Now that you’ve obtained your forex broker license, it’s time to delve into the practical aspects of your forex broker setup, including infrastructure, technology, team, and operations.

You’ve Got the License. What Now?

Now, the most challenging and exciting part begins. It won’t be easy, but getting things up and running is gratifying. As discussed in the previous article, you must assemble your team and make other preparations during the research phase.

Forex business relies heavily on technology, so you’ll need several tech-savvy individuals in your team. Let’s review the things you must address right from the start, to gauge how many people you’ll need.

Payment providers

Once your license is approved, the next critical step is establishing a reliable payment infrastructure. A robust forex broker setup requires careful selection of payment providers to ensure seamless transactions. That starts with opening at least one business bank account—but ideally, you should open several. Banks can be unpredictable, especially when dealing with high-risk industries like forex. An account may be closed with little warning and no clear explanation. Maintaining multiple accounts provides a layer of security and ensures operational continuity if one bank pulls the plug.

You’ll need these accounts to handle operational expenses, vendor payments, and client fund flows. Just keep in mind that this step has never been easy—when we obtained our license over a decade ago, it was already a challenge, and things haven’t gotten much simpler since. Still, with persistence and by choosing the right jurisdiction, you can find banks willing to work with forex businesses.

Beyond traditional banking, you’ll also need to integrate a credit card processing provider and, ideally, several local payment systems. The broader your payment options, the easier it will be for your clients to deposit funds—and the fewer excuses they’ll have not to.

If you plan to target a specific region, prioritize integrating that market’s most trusted local payment systems. This not only builds credibility with local clients, but can also boost conversion rates significantly.

Technology Infrastructure for Your Broker Setup

Your business will require a website, and that starts with choosing a domain name. Can you think of a catchy one? There are proven strategies for selecting a domain name that maximizes your brand’s impact, so be sure to research this thoroughly.

Your website serves as the face of your brokerage—the first impression clients will have. Therefore, every element needs to be as well thought out as possible. Specifically, essential information such as contract specifications, available payment options, deposit and withdrawal methods (along with fees), legal disclosures, contact details, and support methods (like live chat) must be easy to find and logically placed. Otherwise, your support team will be swamped with basic questions. Admittedly, they will be anyway—but poor design will exacerbate the issue.

A good practice is to analyze the websites of your competitors. See what they did well, what they didn’t, and draw your own conclusions to build something better.

Unless you have the time and resources to develop the site in-house, outsourcing to a third-party contractor is perfectly fine. Just make sure you have a clear vision of how your site should look and function, and that you’re able to communicate this effectively. A vague brief can cost you time, money, and a lot of frustration. Also consider early on who within your team will manage the site, update content, and implement changes over time.

If you’re planning to run a multilingual site or one that’s not in your native language, make sure it’s clean of typos and grammatical errors. AI tools can help write compelling copy, but they often produce awkward phrasing. Always have a native speaker proofread your site content—ideally more than once.

Client’s Profile

An essential component of your forex broker setup is the client’s back office system. Alongside your main website, the client’s back office system is equally important. Indeed, this is where your clients will manage their accounts, so it should be designed to be as intuitive and foolproof as possible. For instance, deposits and withdrawals should be frictionless. Additionally, clients should be able to change their passwords, update personal information, or adjust leverage without needing to contact support. Consequently, the better the design, the fewer tickets your support team will have to handle—meaning you can operate with a leaner team and lower costs.

Manager’s Back Office (CRM)

You’ll also need a CRM system—the manager’s back office where your team handles client onboarding, KYC reviews, account approvals, and internal monitoring.

If you can afford it, building your own CRM is a worthwhile investment. It takes longer than purchasing a ready-made solution (some do exist—look for white-label CRMs designed for brokers), but you’ll have full control and the flexibility to customize every part of it to your workflow and compliance needs.

Choosing the Right Trading Platform for Your Setup

Before you even register your company, you’ll need to decide which trading platform your brokerage will use. Selecting the right trading platform is a critical decision in your forex broker setup, impacting user experience and functionality. For most brokers, the default choice is either MetaTrader 4 (MT4) or MetaTrader 5 (MT5)—budget permitting. We started with a single MT4 license and later added MT5 as we grew.

It’s important to note that MetaQuotes no longer sells MT4 licenses. However, it’s still possible to obtain one via the secondary market, often through vendors or brokers who are selling surplus licenses. Keep in mind that acquiring multiple licenses can give your operation more flexibility and capacity as you scale.

If you’re working with a limited budget, you might consider starting with an MT4 or MT5 white-label solution. While this offers less flexibility and branding control than a full license, it can still serve as a viable entry point—though at the time of writing, white-labels may be temporarily unavailable, so check the latest status with official providers or authorized vendors.

Other trading platforms exist—cTrader, NinjaTrader, and others—but we haven’t used them, so we can’t comment on their quality or suitability. Still, it’s worth exploring them if you’re looking for alternatives.

Once your platform decision is finalized and the license is secured, the next step involves choosing your liquidity provider (LP) and bridge software. Specifically, you’ll need a bridge to connect your platform to the LP. Initially, we started with just one LP and gradually added more over time to increase depth, pricing options, and execution reliability.

Choosing Your Liquidity Provider (LP)

Once your trading platform is secured, your next step is selecting a liquidity provider (LP). This is a critical choice—your LP directly affects trade execution quality, spreads, slippage, and client satisfaction. A weak LP setup can sabotage even the most well-built platform.

Popular Liquidity Providers (LPs) Comparison