Wealth
Characters can accrue wealth in the form of credits and other trade goods valued in credits. This allows them to swap out Item abilities faster than normal and even gain temporary item abilities by purchasing them with money.
When buying items, the cost is equal to the item's tier2 x 100 credits to acquire them immediately instead of going through a shopping or haggling social scene. When selling items, spending 1/10th this amount will also allow you to skip such scenes and simply acquire the credits or return of XP.
Without wealth, swapping out Item abilities typically requires 1 day of downtime per tier whereas using wealth allows it to be done with one transaction typically taking only one day or less depending on the nature of the Item and availability of a place that would have it for sale.