IBFX, a firm subsidiary of TradeStation, is exiting the forex dealer business and passing on its accounts to OANDA. The transfer is scheduled to take place on March 4; the financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

After acquiring IBFX’s 2,000 clients, OANDA can now increase its US market share and target second place. The Japanese company TradeStation, owned by Monex, exits the retail forex business in the US just four years after acquiring IBFX for $17m.

Ed Eger, President and CEO of OANDA, said: “Our shared values on these crucial matters were a key reason for striking this deal, rather than any others we’ve recently considered.” He added, “These new clients join a rapidly growing OANDA community at a time when market volatility is high.”

Eger stated that the company would offer free introductory access to some of its advanced services for certain traders.

As part of the deal, clients of IBFX are not going to retain access to their existing trading platform, but instead will get access to OANDA’s fxTrade platform. Starting a day after the transfer, IBFX customers will be offered OANDA subscriptions for real-time TradeStation FX platform integrated with OANDA’s forex price feed.

“Forex has always been a small part of our business and now we will be able to focus all of our online brokerage resources on TradeStation Securities’ equities, options and futures business,” said John Bartleman, President of IBFX and TradeStation Securities.