Apple envisions an Apple Pay beyond its current role at the point of sale and P2P. The Cupertino tech giant is already looking to embed itself further in retail by pushing for NFC (near field communication) tags in individual items, making checkout lines and POS terminals obsolete, similar to the experience at Amazon’s brick-and-mortar locations.

“If you see NFC tags on items at stores. It’s probably Apple’s doing,” Chris Sturm, founder of fintech Avocado Payments said at a meetup yesterday at Bank Innovation’s headquarters in New York.

Sturm’s comments come after a meeting he had in Cupertino for Avocado Payments, he explained.

Avocado Payments provides small businesses and merchants with software that enables them to accept Apple Pay and Google Pay without having to install any hardware. Avocado Payments, instead, uses QR codes. Merchants can use any internet-connected device as their register to accept payments, and/or activate accounts for an unlimited number of salespeople.

Apple’s market cap is $788 billion.

Also Read: Apple Pay Helps Bolster Tech Giant’s Services Revenue Gains

PayPal‘s Dan Schulman has a similar plan for its P2P service Venmo, according to the earnings call yesterday. Venmo, notorious for not impacting PayPal’s bottom line in the six years since being acquired, is expected to have a revenue run-rate of $200 million in 2019, based on its most recent financial results.

One of the key ways PayPal is achieving this is by getting Venmo users to use the service for paying merchants instead of just transferring funds among peers.

By pushing for NFC tags, it may not long before customers can pay with their bank accounts rather than cards in Apple Pay.

Avocado Payments is in the current startup class of INV Fintech, this publication’s sister accelerator.

To learn more about payments and fintech, join us for Bank Innovation Ignite 2019 on March 11-12 at the Hyatt Olive 8, Seattle. Early registration ends this Friday, February 1st at midnight. Register here to secure the lowest possible rate!