The term “broker” is basically the English term for an employee in the stock exchange business who executes the orders of his customers and does not act on his own account – in contrast to the trader. While a few decades ago a broker was usually a single person, the term “broker” or “online broker” is now usually used for large companies that enable their customers – the traders – to trade securities on the stock exchanges.

The trader can watch the markets from home, as well as make purchases and sales, through the trading platform provided to him by brokers. This is basically also the case with online banks – however, the online brokers differ from online banks by some important features. Compared to the bank, online brokers basically only act as intermediaries.