A pair of currencies traded in forex that does not include the U.S. dollar. One foreign currency is traded for another without having to first exchange the currencies into American dollars.  



|||Historically, an individual who wished to exchange a sum of money into a different currency would be required to first convert that money into U.S dollars, and then convert it into the desired currency; cross currencies help individuals and traders bypass this step. The GBP/JPY cross, for example, was invented to help individuals in England and Japan who wanted to convert their money directly without having to first convert it into U.S dollars.