The basis of securities (a tradable financial instrument. Currencies are ) is that there is no such thing as ‘the price’ or ‘the rate’.
Two individuals/entities in a market play the role of the bidder and the asker. The bidder offers to buy, the asker offers to sell. Therefore, the ‘bid’ and the ‘ask’.
Depending on how the data is presented, data is usually the median between the bid and the ask, or the price of the last trade.
On the retail (consumer) level, the process of buying and selling securities is sometimes simplified so that the price just displays as the median between the bid and the ask.