Square is available in Japan with the support and partnership of Sumitomo Mitsui Card Corporation (SMCC). Responsible for introducing Visa to Japan, SMCC is widely recognized and respected for its ability to provide a wide range of solutions, including a comprehensive and highly secure credit card and payment solution.

This marks the first international expansion for Square outside of North America, where they service over 4 million individuals and businesses. Square says that they are now processing over $15 billion in payments annually.

And like in North America, Square will take a 3.25% cut of transactions in Japan.

Here’s what Square co-founder and CEO, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, had to say about the move:

“I am honored to introduce Square to a country with a rich history of design, innovation and tradition. Square shares the same values and attention to detail in our products. Our tools are made to enable business owners to create a delightful, seamless experience for their customers. I look forward to Square assisting in Japan’s continued economic growth and entrepreneurship opportunities.”

Also, he’s been Vining the news:

Square: now available in Japan. squareup.com/jp vine.co/v/b9YgW3W6Wj7

— Jack Dorsey (@jack) May 23, 2013

You can check out Square Japan here.

It’s called the Square Stand, and it turns your iPad into a true point of sale system.

“Local business owners take as a given that they need an ugly, slow, expensive, and complicated point of sale system cluttering their counter,” said Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO of Square. “Square Stand is elegant, fast, affordable, and easy to use. Whether you’re selling cupcakes, cardigans, or cappuccinos, running your business with Square has never been easier.”

Square Stand lets you attach your iPad 2 or 3 (versions with lighting connectors coming soon) to a adjustable stand, complete with an attached card reader. This, of course, replaces the old method of attached the smaller Square Reader to your iPad. The Stand can be secured to your countertop, and when it is all said and done it becomes a more secure, permanent, and faster POS system for your business – at least according to Square. But there’s no arguing that this new piece of hardware would make processing a high volume of transactions much less of a headache.

Ready to use in minutes, Square Stand works with Square Register, the free point of sale application, and gives merchants access to real-time analytics, robust reporting, and a delightful experience for their customers. Square Stand features an integrated card reader that keeps information secure from swipe to payment, and easily connects to the hardware accessories businesses need, including a receipt printer, kitchen printer, cash drawer, and barcode scanner.

Square Stand will run you $299. You can pre-order it starting today, and it will be available to purchase in Best Buys on July 8th.

Last month, Square launched a big update to Square Register to make it much more useful to restaurants.

PayPal and Coinstar are expanding the program to Northern California, Ohio, and other parts of Texas.

The new Coinstar kiosks allow users to add coins and paper money directly to their PayPal accounts, as well as withdraw funds from their accounts. The kiosks also allow for fund transfers between separate PayPal accounts.

PayPal says that this is just the beginning of a rollout process, one that will continue throughout the year.

The expansion of the program can be attributed to the kiosks’ success in Dallas. PayPal says that 40% of users who used the PayPal feature on the kiosks went back to use it again twice a month, on average.

“This is just another example of how we’re bringing the convenience and security of PayPal to consumers not just online but everywhere in today’s multi-channel shopping environment,” says PayPal head of financial innovations Dan Schatt.

For PayPal, it’s all about moving the payment option outside of the realm of the internet and making it a ubiquitous presence in more real-life scenarios. A couple of weeks before Christmas, PayPal unveiled new prepaid cards. PayPal also recently partnered with Discover to make PayPal a payment option in millions of stores in the U.S.

Everyone is calling the App “Apple’s Passbook on Android”. Google, of course, already has some Passbook-like features in Google Now, not to mention Google Wallet.

Samsung says, “Samsung Wallet is a convenient mobile app which allows users to store and manage event tickets, boarding passes, membership cards and coupons all in one place.”

Yeah, it sounds pretty much like Passbook.

“By using Samsung Wallet API, partners can integrate their Associate Apps and Samsung Wallet in the way that they can add their tickets and coupons to Samsung Wallet,” the company says. “The easy to use, time and location based push notification feature of Samsung Wallet will alert partner’s relevant coupons and tickets to users, providing increased access to partner’s Associate Apps, not to mention real-time updates on membership card points and changes to boarding passes. Samsung Wallet also adopts a co-marketing coupons that provides optimal marketing effect to partners. As more and more users enjoy Samsung Wallet, the same will happen to Associate Apps, enabling a win-win commerce ecosystem.”

The Verge points to this video from the demo at Samsung Developer Day:

Earlier this week, MasterCard announced its new MasterPass digital wallet, in addition to a new partnership with FourSquare on offers.

On March 14th, Samsung will announce the Galaxy S IV. The company announced the Galaxy Note 8 mini-tablet the other day.

MasterPass includes checkout services for merchants, and connected wallets for users.

“Every device is becoming a shopping device,” said Ed McLaughlin, chief emerging payments officer, MasterCard. “MasterPass brings together all of the ways we pay for things, from traditional plastic cards to digital wallets, and gives consumers the ability to make a payment from wherever they are and with one simple experience.”

MasterPass will be integrated into mFoundry’s nearly 900 bank customers, integrating it into mFoundry’s mobile banking solutions, which have millions of customers.

“Consumers will now shop and pay in whatever way best fits their needs and lifestyles, from every device they have. MasterPass gives them the ability to make a payment from wherever they are, with one simple experience,” said Ed Olebe, Group Head, MasterPass Services, MasterCard. “Integrating with mFoundry’s solution embeds the power of MasterPass into an industry-leading mobile banking platform and enhances both the payment and banking experience for consumers.”

“Together, mFoundry and MasterPass deliver an outstanding customer experience by integrating mobile banking and mobile payments into one, seamless solution,” said mFoundry CEO Drew Sievers. “By bringing together both, financial institutions can transform their mobile banking experience and achieve the broader goal of turning mobile into their most valuable channel.”

MasterCard announced PayPass nearly a year ago, and says MasterPass is an evolution of it. mFoundry will create a digital wallet service using its APIs, and the service will be available early next year. Pilots are expected to launch later this year.

It’s called the “Business in a Box” and according to Square is “all the hardware you need to run Square Register on your counter.”

For $299, you’ll receive two Square Readers, a Heckler Design WindFall iPad Stand, and an APG Vasario 1616 Cash Drawer. That’s the paperless route. If you want to add the receipt printer to your package, it will force the price up to $599.

Of course, everything works wirelessly with Square Register.

“Historically, business owners were forced to piece together multiple hardware components from various manufacturers, manage complicated contracts and pricing structures, and pay for expensive software licensing and service plans. Now, they can be up and running with Square Register in minutes,” says Square.

It’s an entire point of sale system in one box. The simplicity of it all is exactly what Square is marketing. Why mess around with traditional POS systems or try to piece the parts together yourself when you can get your iPad stand and cash register straight from Square? That’s the idea here.

“In many countries it’s possible to pay for practically anything with a bankcard, and in Russia it’s gradually becoming the norm as well, especially in big cities,” said Lev Volozh, head of the Yandex.Taxi service. “People enjoy the convenience of using bankcards to make payments in shops, restaurants and at the cinema ¬– but in Moscow there are still very few taxis equipped to take bankcards. With the help of our service, people can pay for their taxi ride whichever way suits them best – by cash or by card.”

“Thanks to the new service’s integration with Yandex.Money, users can be confident that their transaction will be fast and secure: they can pay by card without actually handing their card to the driver or disclosing their card details to the taxi company,” Yandex says in its announcement. “Yandex.Money has been working with bankcards for a long time and has a strong track record, having processed millions of transactions, including payments to many transportation providers. Yandex.Money can already be used to buy plane, train and intercity bus tickets.”

The service, for now, is only available in Moscow, but the company says it will soon launch in other cities and on other mobile platforms. It will also come to taxi.yandex.ru.

Yandex reported fourth-quarter earnings this week, missing estimates for profits. The company leads in Google in search market share in Russia, with over 60% of the market.

Earlier this month, numbers from comScore showed that Yandex is actually leading Bing worldwide in terms of search queries.

Additionally, Square announced on Wednesday that it is now working with Angie’s List so that merchants can enable mobile payments as part of Angie’s List’s Business Center mobile app.

“Working with Square will help provide happier transactions for our members and service companies,” said Angie’s List Founder Angie Hicks. “We’re excited to work with Square because they understand what small businesses need to succeed.”

“Whether on site or at a customer’s home, people will now have a fast, reliable way to accept payments. With Square, Angie’s List businesses can focus their time and energy on what really matters—doing great work,” said Square co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey. “We’re proud to work with Angie’s List to make life easier for businesses of all sizes.”

The Business Center app is currently only available on iOS.

Participating retailers include: Famous Footwear, Dollar General, Mapco Express, RadioShack, Spartan Stores, Abercrombie & Fitch, Advance Auto Parts, Aéropostale, American Eagle Outfitters, Barnes & Noble, Foot Locker, Guitar Center, the Home Depot, Jamba Juice, JC Penney, Jos. A. Bank Clothiers, Nine West, Office Depot, Rooms To Go, Tiger Direct, and Toys “R” Us. The other two will be named soon, PayPal says.

“Delivering valuable digital and mobile payments is alive and thriving, and consumers all over the U.S. will now start seeing PayPal more where they shop every day, including the grocery store and at the gas pump,” says PayPal VP, Retail Services, Don Kingsborough. “We believe that by bringing value to the checkout experience ‘every day’ with proven technology that is simple, fast, and secure and offering true benefits such as coupons, rewards and loyalty, we’ve uncovered a winning solution when people pay. No bells, whistles or buzzes – just technology that works and gets the most from your money.”

These are some big name retailers, for sure, and that means a big boost to PayPal as a payment options for many consumers. It stands to reason that the company will only expand on this roster, surely making mobile payments a much bigger phenomenon in 2013. PayPal has an edge over rivals given its longtime brand recognition.

“This is an exciting time at PayPal because our path to enabling people to pay with PayPal in the store has now gone from a vision to a reality,” says Kingsboough. “We are executing on our vision of cloud-based payments to enable true convenience across any channel from your laptop to your smartphone or the store. Some of the competition has stumbled with alternative technology offerings that don’t address true customer pain points – they have created technology, just for technology’s sake.”

According to PayPal, there are 18,000 stores in the U.S. where you use PayPal.

If all of that wasn’t enough, however, PayPal will soon be available in millions of locations, according to Kingsborough. According to multiple reports, PayPal has also struck a deal with NCR, which will see PayPal payments in NCR’s mobile apps and restaurant and retail services. According to VentureBeat, NCR powers payments for half of the major retail chains and 38% of the top 100 restaurants in the U.S.

Update: Kingsborough just formally announced the NCR partnership on the PayPal blog. He gives the following details:

In the first phase, NCR will integrate PayPal mobile payment options into the recently announced NCR Mobile Pay application and NCR Aloha Online Ordering. With this integration, PayPal will be a payment option and allow consumers greater choice for simple, fast and secure purchases, alongside credit or debit cards. Consumers will also be able to use the PayPal mobile application to locate, order-ahead and “check-in” at participating NCR Mobile Pay merchants to access the same functionality.

Groupon says the service can be activated within minutes, and can be used to enter bill totals, add tips, apply taxes, process refunds and email customer receipts. It’s backed by Groupon’s 24/7 support team, which can be reached by phone or email.

“We’re thrilled to bring the powerful features of the Groupon Merchants app and the cost savings and convenience of Groupon Payments to more merchants with smart phones,” said Gene Alston, General Manager of Groupon Payments. “This app is an effective tool for merchants looking to process payments and track customer growth.”

The app encrypts credit card info for security, and provides analytics, looking at live transaction history, daily sales reports, deposit tracking, and revenue trend analysis.

The app is available in Google Play. The service is already part of the iPhone app.