What is a Liquidity Provider Fee?

Liquidity Provider Defined

Trading platforms, especially forex and cryptocurrency, process billions of dollars worth of transactions every day. The best exchanges ensure that there is enough liquidity for all trades to be paired with a counterparty. When a liquidity provider does not connect an order book with deep liquidity pools, trades may not go through, or prices may not be reported accurately.

Sometimes, inexperienced brokers and traders understand liquidity providers as market-makers; meanwhile, they are in charge of two different functions. Market-makers are banks and hedge funds that execute orders, while a liquidity provider is a mediator between brokers/exchanges and market-makers. As such, it is vital that you work with a liquidity provider with a good reputation and access to constant liquidity.

FX Liquidity Providers Keep Markets Moving

Investors prefer to work with exchanges and brokers who have a solid reputation and are able to provide clients with ultimate features and beneficial conditions. Unfortunately, plenty of liquidity providers cannot meet demand, or they do not take out a sufficient liquidity provider fee to prevent any serious liquidity crunches or uneven trades.

Liquidity Provider Fees Ways to Charge Them

The core mission of a liquidity provider is to connect a broker’s/exchange’s order book to the deepest liquidity pools. In such a situation banks (e.g., JP Morgan Chase) or top-rated crypto exchanges executed bid and ask orders on their own. What are liquidity provider's fees? How do such mediators charge fees?

They say, a liquidity provider gets profit from spreads and swaps only; meanwhile, that is true for market-makers - large banks, funds, and other institutions form their gains from spreads and swaps. Liquidity provider fees are variable, depending on the company. Brokerage firms and exchanges should meet a provider with no hidden fees and transparent cooperation conditions.

What About CFD’s?

Liquidity providers are also essential in the CFD markets particularly as contracts can become illiquid very quickly. Since CFDs are such highly leveraged instruments, maintaining adequate liquidity throughout the trade can be a make-or-break for the buyer or the seller.

CFD liquidity providers will ensure there is adequate liquidity so that CFD traders can take full advantage of their leveraged trades without worrying about having the bid/ask spread slip by a large margin.

Final Thoughts

The best liquidity providers are classified as Tier 1 because they have tight bid/ask spreads for the different markets and they provide reliable and relevant data to their traders.

Searching for a liquidity provider is a personal choice, but a brokerage company should work with reliable providers that guarantee the best conditions - this factor does matter for traders as well. For example, if you prefer to trade occasionally and are not using leverage, you may be able to use a simple trading platform with an average liquidity provider, However, if you are a professional day trader who needs the smallest bid-ask spreads possible you may want to pay a premium to ensure that your trades go through and you get the closest price to your goal possible.

Financial markets are fiercely competitive environments, and the number of brokers and exchanges grows steadily. Never ignore the importance of a high-level liquidity provider, as you need to provide traders with high-class features and the most beneficial conditions.