Retail trading of currencies is still small as a percentage of the whole foreign exchange market, but by most other standards it is a big market. Of the daily $3tr turnover of FX trades, retail activity probably accounts for an average of $90bn a day. This compares with estimates by the Bank for International Settlements of around $60bn in 2006 and $10bn in 2001. Services for private FX traders are mushrooming – newspapers and the internet are full of their advertisements. Even big global banks are making efforts to upgrade their offerings to attract the retail dollar. Yet it is only just over a decade since the foreign exchange markets opened up to retail traders. The key driver has been the rapid expansion of the internet. Prices which had previously only been visible over Reuters 2000 screens or via the EBS electronic platform could be displayed in real time via...