The smallest price change that a given exchange rate can make. Since most major currency pairs are priced to four decimal places, the smallest change is that of the last decimal point - for most pairs this is the equivalent of 1/100th of one percent, or one basis point.
For example, the smallest move the USD/CAD currency pair can make is $0.0001, or one basis point.[@more@]
BPS: A unit that is equal to 1/100th of 1%, and is used to denote the change in a financial instrument. The basis point is commonly used for calculating changes in interest rates, equity indexes and the yield of a fixed-income security.
The relationship between percentage changes and basis points can be summarized as follows: 1% change = 100 basis points, and 0.01% = 1 basis point.