New York federal Judge Lorna Schofield on Tuesday gave preliminary approval to proposed settlements totalling US$111.2 million between five more banks and investors in a wide-ranging suit accusing 16 of the world's largest banks of rigging foreign exchange rates, in violation of US antitrust law, bringing total payouts to US$2.1 billion since 2015, according to online legal news service Law360.com and other sources. A late settlement with another bank (believed to be either Credit Suisse or Deutsche Bank) has brought the running total of banks that have settled since 2015 to 15. US investment bank Morgan Stanley was the biggest contributor in the latest round of the FX rate rigging settlements, paying US$50 million to settle the case. Société Générale and Standard Chartered each paid US$17.2 million, Royal Bank of Canada settled for US$15.5 million and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ was left with a bill of US$10.5 million, reports The Telegraph. The settlements require the banks to co-operate with the claimants by providing transaction data, documents and witness interviews which lawyers hope will fuel further law suits in other jurisdictions. European major BNP Paribas is to offer the nexo acquirer payment acceptance messaging protocol across 14 European countries - comprising the majority of western and central European economies. Nexo is a self-described "open global association dedicated to removing the barriers in a fragmented global card payment acceptance ecosystem", established in 2014 when three historical contributors of card payment standards and specifications were merged: EPASOrg, the OSCar consortium and the CIR SEPA-Fast technical working group. BNP said its aim in adopting nexo standards was to remove a "costly, time-consuming and complex task of managing multiple, incompatible domestic acceptance systems simultaneously", and to standardise its monitoring and reconciliation procedures. European banks, under siege from digital challengers and sophisticated cyber attackers could face capital relief from a possible change in accounting rules that will enable them to list spending on software as a 'cost' rather than an 'investment'. Eurozone banks currently have to set aside capital to cover any software expenditure, Finextra explains, citing a Reuters report that the European Commission is considering a change to bring its banking rules in line with the US. This could free up more than €20 billion in capital for IT investment, based on a forecast by consultant Celent that European banks would spend more than €60 billion on IT and software this year, Finextra noted. John Cryan, chief executive of Deutsche Bank, has told an audience of bankers in Frankfurt that he expected a "big number" of his current staff to be replaced by robots, Finextra reports, citing an item in the Financial Times. Cryan did confirm, though, that some staff would be "upskilled" and given more interesting work as the more commoditised tasks were entrusted to automation and robots.