Foreign exchange is a system by which commercial nations discharge their debts to each other. This indebtedness may represent the value of commodities exported to or imported from other countries, money borrowed, loaned, or invested abroad, and the interest or profits on such funds; the cost for transportation of goods and the commissions for service; the expense incurred in traveling in foreign countries; in fact, any transactions which involve the remitting of money, or anything representing money, from one country to another. These debts have to be paid, either with cash or something equally satisfactory to the creditors. The cost of transmitting gold or currency, and the risk attending the same, while sometimes resorted to, are generally considered too great, and it is to avoid this risk and expense that the system of exchanging debts through the medium of commercial paper is adopted.