"It might be the case that nothing happens to their retail spending," Anderson says. That outcome might be fine for the credit issuer, since "they just want to make sure you pay your bills on time," but it offers little incentive to the retailer. It's a chicken-or-the-egg problem. To find out how unbanked customers might use its cards, a retailer would have to issue its cards to them first. But because the customers have no credit history, it's hard to issue the cards in the first place.