IB/IdealPro only matches your orders with a number of banks prices or other IB customer orders. Theres no games being played with the spread or quotes on IB, and they do not "bucket" your trade, like some posters above imply, they are agency only. You even get the name of the counterparty to your trades in the execution report. If you really want to trade FX, i suggest you go with spot. You often get < 1 pip spreads, it is cheaper, also CME only trades 23h/day while the underlying spot-market trades 24h. Crosses like Eur/Jpy or Gbp/Jpy are illiqid/not available on CME either. Only EuroFX and Yen futures can compare to spot in terms of spreads/liquidity. If you trade big enough to overcome the minimum commission, you get very competitive rates from IB for spot FX. Its pretty solid in my opinion.