Little scholarly attention has been paid to the financial impact of the 1917 transition from Ottoman to British rule in Palestine. Less consideration still has been accorded to the range of tactics employed by ordinary Arab Palestinians – peasants, salaried middle classes, merchants, businessmen – to defend themselves against the financial disadvantages inherent in this change in regime. This paper has two goals. First, it examines the impact of two key financial aspects of the Ottoman to Mandate transition: the decision taken by British administrators immediately after their arrival in Jerusalem to outlaw all Ottoman currencies and impose the Anglo-Egyptian pound as the sole legal tender in the areas under their control; and the decision, taken shortly after the Mandate’s establishment, to close the Ottoman Agricultural Bank and collect all loans outstanding on its books. This talk then examines how ordinary Arab Palestinians fought to defend their interests in light of these two policies. It argues that, despite prevailing British and Zionist attitudes as to the “simplicity,” “backwardness,” and “lack of financial sophistication” of the Arab Palestinians at the time, the archival evidence shows that even impoverished peasants displayed an understanding of complex financial matters and a keen sense of the economic protections owed to them by the colonial state. And when such protections proved to be lacking, Palestinians of non-elite backgrounds used protests, petitions, and litigation to fight for their rights. This talk draws from material found in the Barclays Bank archives, the archives of the Shehadeh Law Firm in Ramallah, the Israel State Archives, and the National Archives of the United Kingdom, as well as oral interviews conducted in Palestine and Israel. The talk ultimately hopes to raise broad questions about financial and property rights for the stateless and colonized people of the early 20th century.