I've come across an odd issue in my game in terms of money.

My party, as expected, got into some trouble with the ISB and got caught. A couple of them managed to escape and immediately buy a trip off planet which came to the question. If all your money is electronic and managed via the Galatic Bank what is stopping people like the ISB from just freezing your accounts? Which also leads into how does any suspected Rebel have money when their accounts can be monitored or frozen? Are there bank accounts in Star Wars and do they operate like normal banks or is there some sort of freedom of commerce?

There is hard currency as well. In the form of, hard currency, and the equivalent of cash cards basically.

With the existence of the Banking Clan, it would be possible that banking transactions or accounts can be effectively removed from direct imperial control.

If the players were smugglers or involved in the underworld, they have probably already setup safe accounts or used false names so it would take time for the ISB to even track their accounts.

In the movies we see Qui gon mention credits although we don't see the form of the currency. In Star Wars Han and Chewie are loading boxes of something considered to be payment, what precisely that is we don't know, precious metals or some form of hard coinage perhaps. In the book Scoundrels without revealing plot details the credits are on smart cards but appear to be hard coded in some way and have intrinsic value beyond face value. No one likes the government taking their money or stealing their personal information, Sith or no Sith, so I would think there is either a great deal of barter in the galaxy or some forms of accepted hard currency.

Credits can be in the form of physical coins. I have also seen references in EU books to the "cred stick" or "credit tab" which are the equivalent of a modern day cash card. As was mentioned above, if your characters are smugglers and scoundrels they may very likely have "safe" credit accounts set up so the ISB can't freeze all their funds. I'm just giving you an out here; you're perfectly within your rights as GM to tell the players that if they didn't specifically set something up then they're broke. An entire adventure could be written around their efforts to book passage or what happens to them once they get on board the first ship that will have them.

I now give a +1 to 2P51 for referencing "Scoundrels". One of the best Star Wars books out there, certainly Timothy Zahn's best, and I highly recommend it. Sorry to digress...

Yeah, hard currency, and also its just a big galaxy. Its one thing for the empire to freeze leias accounts in the 1st imperial Bank of coruscant, its another to try and freeze Jonny Starhoppers accounts at Big Bungies savings and loan of mos espa.

With the existence of the Banking Clan, it would be possible that banking transactions or accounts can be effectively removed from direct imperial control.

I think it's safe to say that the Banking Clan, being on the losing side of the Clone Wars and situated within Republic territory, would be either brought under total Imperial control, or removed entirely. However ...

In Star Wars Han and Chewie are loading boxes of something considered to be payment, what precisely that is we don't know, precious metals or some form of hard coinage perhaps.

Doesn't Han also flip a coin to the cantina barkeep in Mos Eisley?

"Sorry for the mess."

I believe the credit to exist both as digital as well as hard currency - the former as the standard medium for larger transactions, the latter for smalltime business, with a huge overlap in daily life where people would transfer their digital savings onto a portable medium, either electronically (like "charging" or activating a sort of USB voucher from your account), or by simple conversion of digital cash into minted coinage.

It might pay off to look into Shadowrun for inspiration regarding electronic cash.

Also, it's worth to mention that the Galactic Empire does not control the entire galaxy. There are a number of neutral, semi-independent entities such as the Corporate Sector that could serve to effectively launder cash. Not to mention various crime syndicates, local nobility and underworld organisations that could be of help to the Rebels in this regard.

In essence, think about how Al-Qaeda does business, and you're on the right track.

I don't know, but we can fairly assume that it works like in our real world.

Does anybody know for example how the drug cartels handle their money? They deal with huge amounts of money, I doubt that they do everything in hard cash. They should have bank accounts, may be accounts that are tied to legal "cover up" companies?

I guess in SW is the same, if you are an outlaw, a criminal, a fringe and also dumb, well you are fckd up! but if you are clever...well there is a whole universe of possibilities how to hide, "wash", or mask your money or accounts.

PCs can for example keep some hard coins while putting money on the bank in cover up accounts. Probably the Hutts, Black Sun and other smaller-less-known crime organisations know how to do this and the PCs can turn to them for help...obligations obligations obligations!!

Cheers,

Yepes

Cartels use good old fashioned bribes in countries with dubious justice systems. The laundering isn't magical. They walk right into their banks they have people with boxes of money and wire it to accounts overseas.

I'm sure the Hutts and Black Sun do the same. Buy people in the banking clan to turn a blind eye to transactions.

Or just run your own banks. The Hutt's do have their own "space" and, to at least a certain extent, government so establishing that they also need their own banks isn't a stretch. Likewise the Corporate Sector enjoys a noticeable amount of autonomy, and asset management is the kind of business that like noticeable amounts of autonomy.

At the end of the day I think the real question is: To what extent can the Empire even regulate the various banks and asset management services in the galaxy?

At the end of the day I think the real question is: To what extent can the Empire even regulate the various banks and asset management services in the galaxy?

Princess Leia was a known Rebel leader and imprisoned aboard the Death Star yet neither Han nor Luke thought that the Empire could have seized all her money. To me that's a sign that, at least when the Senate was still operational, the Empire had little or no control over the banking systems.

Han and Luke didn't strike me as Wall Street bankers or Securities investigators.

Princess Leia was a known Rebel leader and imprisoned aboard the Death Star yet neither Han nor Luke thought that the Empire could have seized all her money. To me that's a sign that, at least when the Senate was still operational, the Empire had little or no control over the banking systems.

Is it not appearing in the Clone Wars that is Palpatine who ends up controlling the Intergalactic banking clan?

Princess Leia was a known Rebel leader and imprisoned aboard the Death Star yet neither Han nor Luke thought that the Empire could have seized all her money. To me that's a sign that, at least when the Senate was still operational, the Empire had little or no control over the banking systems.

Is it not appearing in the Clone Wars that is Palpatine who ends up controlling the Intergalactic banking clan?

Yes.

Princess Leia was a known Rebel leader and imprisoned aboard the Death Star yet neither Han nor Luke thought that the Empire could have seized all her money. To me that's a sign that, at least when the Senate was still operational, the Empire had little or no control over the banking systems.

Is it not appearing in the Clone Wars that is Palpatine who ends up controlling the Intergalactic banking clan?

Yes.

Controlling the biggest isn't the same as controlling all. In TPM we see several cases where on Tattooine (Hutt controlled) someone mentions the idea of non-republic issued currency. The wupiupi is mentioned as if it were a form of currency (I'm going for clean canon on this one since I can, but beyond the film it's said it's Hutt currency), and the fact the Watto doesn't take republic credits suggest he does take credits issued by another source (or perhaps barter, though he doesn't strike me as the 40 dewbacks for a power convertor kinda guy).

The fact that groups other then the Republic can issue currency suggests the Republic, and later the Empire can't regulate all the banks and economies in the entire galaxy. The biggest, sure. The most influential, probably. But not all.

By extension, depending on who you are and what you do (and how often the galaxy seems to go to war) its probably pretty standard for people and groups with significant assets to keep them squirreled away in different banks, holding companies, and brokerage operations all over the galaxy.

Maybe you can have electronic credits in several different forms. Today we have bank accounts and credit cards. You can also have money on pre-paid credit cards. I'd think that in star wars, most of the electronic money the players have would be on pre-paid credit card type devices. Not tied to a name, but tied to the card/chip. ISB could freeze their banking accounts, since they are already living on the fringe it might be a safe assumption this had already been done before the game even started, but the ISB can't touch pre-paid cards that they don't find since they aren't tied to a name. The players could've stuffed some cards in hiding spots on their ship so if they were raided and arrested that not everything would be taken.

As for the coin Han flipped to the bartender. One could argue that it only looked like a coin, but it actually was a pre-paid credit chip. Since it wasn't called out as electronic or hard currency in the movie it could be anything.

Depending on what is going on they might not bother freezing accounts. There are a lot of low level petty dweebs running around, that would get awfully labor intensive. Plus if they think these are truly bad people they want to catch again or monitor makes more sense to watch accounts than freeze them.

With so many beings in the galaxy, starting dummy accounts under false names might be trivially easy.

The way I understand it, credit chips are both electronic AND a hard form of currency.

Sort of like prepaid Debit cards. You don't have to register the card number to your name, you just dump cash on it.

So unless ISB actually has your account number, they won't know what account is yours as long as you didn't register the account.

So they are electronic, but they aren't being kept track of.

So you can have your credit chip be pre-paid. As in it is simply an unsecured chip tied to an anonymous account with a running balance. Anyone with the chip can access it. This seems to be what SW has as "hard cash".

Alternatively, it can be tied to an account. In which case its much like any regular debit or credit card.

Then you can have any local currency which might be in use.

I actually think what Han flipped the bartender might have been a Hutt Cartel bond chip. They're used as currency by the Hutts instead of Credits, but they're accepted just about anywhere as an alternate form of currency.

With so many beings in the galaxy, starting dummy accounts under false names might be trivially easy.

Certainly. People do it today all the time. When you've got millions of civilized planets, any of which will likely have a number of local banks plus branches of the major intergalactic banks, its going to be silly easy.

Hide out on an out of the way planet for 6 months or so with a new name, build up some new accounts and credibility before transferring back out elsewhere with a new name and new account numbers.