Minor currency pair

The category sits between the major currency pairs and the exotic currency pairs, and is made up of pairs between two heavily traded currencies neither of which is the US dollar: euro against sterling, euro against the yen, sterling against the yen, and the pairs among the Australian, New Zealand and Canadian dollars. The other name for them, crosses, records how they were priced historically, by crossing two dollar rates rather than quoting the pair directly.

That history still shows in the pricing. Direct interbank liquidity exists in the busiest crosses, but for the thinner ones a quoted price is assembled from the two dollar legs behind the scenes, which is why a cross often carries a wider bid-ask spread than either leg does on its own. A cross also inherits the sessions of both its currencies, so its liquidity thins in the hours when neither home market is open.

The naming is genuinely unsettled, and it is the main source of confusion. Some desks and brokers use minor for any pair outside the majors, including dollar pairs with smaller currencies, while others use minor and cross interchangeably for the non dollar set described here. A third convention reserves cross for the calculation method rather than for a category. No authority arbitrates, so a broker's own instrument list is the only reliable statement of what it means by the word.