If you are involved in currency trading, you are probably going to come across the term interbank foreign exchange trading from time to time.
When hopeful foreign exchange trading began, after the relaxation of the gold standard which fixed relative currency values till the 1970s, it really only concerned banks and other giant money institutions such as fund executives. It was rare for private people to be concerned unless they’d financial connections. Most of the establishments – which are typically just called banks for simplicity – would have their own dealing desk where their staff would negotiate with other banks, either on a trading floor in one of the finance centers, or by wire or phone to other locations around the planet. So initially the foreign exchange market was almost totally interbank, meaning between banks. But then the internet began to take over from the phone as the key trading medium, and at the same time it became more and more common for average citizens to have a home PC and a broadband connection. This reduce costs and made it productive for many brokers to take on clients who weren’t dealing in many thousands of greenbacks, but far littler amounts. So steadily it became less complicated for folks to trade from home. More and more of these retail traders have been coming online in the previous couple of years, getting concerned in the forex market to make money – or often , sadly, to lose it. That’s what can happen if a newb is not sufficiently well prepared for the swift moving and dangerous environment of the fx trading market.
You still may see the term ‘interbank’ employed in a way that includes all of the forex market and those that trade it in, but strictly it shouldn’t be used that way any more. There is a difference between retail forex trading and interbank foreign exchange trading.