SAN FRANCISCO - PayPal unveiled new deals on Thursday that may help the online payment giant expand into more physical stores.

Photo: PayPal

PayPal, owned by eBay Inc, said it signed agreements with VeriFone Systems and Equinox Payments to get its payment technology on to their networks of checkout terminals.

VeriFone and Equinox provide payment terminals that are used in stores run by many of the world's largest retailers. PayPal signed a similar deal with the other leading payment terminal provider, Ingenico, earlier this year.

One of PayPal's most important sources of future growth may come from its expansion into physical stores - a much bigger market than its online roots.

Agreements with VeriFone and other leading payment terminal providers will help this expansion. The deals give PayPal potential access to almost 40 million payment terminals that are already installed in stores worldwide.

PayPal is already accepted in about 2,000 Home Depot stores. This project was rolled out quickly earlier this year, partly because no new hardware needed to be bought or installed by the retailer. Instead, just the software on these payment terminals needed to be upgraded.

PayPal is expected to strike deals soon with other retailers to provide its payment service in their stores.