Currency

Many worlds still retain coins or other forms of physical money from the time before the Gap, and they may occasionally use them for local trade. However, the standard unit of currency in the Galactic Alliance is the credit. All interplanetary business is conducted in standardized credits, thanks to their backing and regulation through the Galactic Alliance government and DUSTCorp. Converting a world’s economy to the credit standard is a requirement of joining the alliance, and even worlds far outside the alliance’s official jurisdiction often prefer to use them, since they are so universally carried and understood.
Credits are a combination of digital and physical currency. Most individuals and corporations in Edrazion store their funds digitally in accounts with major banking houses, protected by the strongest spells and encryption money can buy. Yet the price of such security is high: accessing these funds requires jumping through significant hoops, and official transactions between accounts must be transparent to government and banking officials, making true privacy impossible.

Credsticks

Fortunately, the widespread use of the credstick circumvents issues related to spending and storing currency. Flat and roughly the size of a human finger, ranging from cheap and disposable to elaborate works of art, credsticks are a convenient way to carry and spend money. When an individual wants to load money onto a credstick, she visits an automated bank kiosk and goes through the security procedures required to place a set amount of currency on the unit. The specifics of these procedures vary, but they might include retinal scans, fingerprinting, gene reading, or some form of magical identification.
Once loaded onto the credstick, the funds become completely anonymous, and the owner can dole out any amount to other credsticks wirelessly—sometimes it’s easiest for owners to simply hand over the credstick itself and acquire a new one later. In addition to allowing individuals to make purchases anonymously, credsticks also provide users with peace of mind—they help keep identity theft rare and difficult, and the pickpocket who nabs your credstick gains access only to whatever funds were left on it, not your entire net worth.
Individuals in Edrazion sometimes receive money via direct account transfers, particularly if they’re being employed by reputable organizations, but most everyday purchases are made with credsticks, and nearly all black-market or confidential transactions use them. While credsticks can theoretically hold any amount, most people opt to carry smaller denominations—sticks holding only a few tens or hundreds of credits— so as not to tempt fate. As such, criminal deals often involve sacks full of credsticks with small denominations, to raise less suspicion. Only those looking to flaunt their wealth use luxury credsticks like the infamous DUST Black stick, known throughout the galaxy for its built-in secure link to an unlimited line of credit. In most technologically advanced urban areas, no one bothers to track fractions of credits, and few things cost a fraction of a credit. Mass production makes it cheaper to sell entire suits of clothing, prebundled into 1-credit packages, than to sell individual items worth less than a credit each. However, some credsticks are designed to allow fractional credit purchases.
Assume that most individuals in civilized areas carry only enough credstick funds on them to make it through a week or two of expenses, and that even those who store all their funds physically keep most of it hidden somewhere safe. While credsticks make it physically possible for a character to carry a near limitless amount of money on them, few people are insane enough to do so!