"Good information is important but it is not everything, unfortunately. People have to be willing to use it."
Already stringent standards covering debt consolidation were tightened further after the crisis and corporates were given better guidance on so-called "marked-to-market rules", which cover the value of unrealised financial instruments.
Changes have just been made to the loss model for bad loans.
Hoogervorst, who served as an adviser during the crisis, said that in the midst of the Greek sovereign debt meltdown, banks were pretending that conditions were normal when Greek sovereign debt should have been valued at an 80 per cent discount.
He said the big mystery about the global crisis was that nobody saw the dangers ahead - including regulators and auditors.
"What tends to happen when the going is good is that everybody starts seeing it as a natural phenomenon that house prices can only rise."
Since the crisis, standards had become more transparent and banks had become better capitalised.
IFRS is used in Latin America, Canada, Europe, Africa and in parts of Asia but not in the United States - which uses Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.
Hoogervorst said the treatment of leases would be the next big thing for the accounting profession.
The changes would cover the cost of a lease being included in the balance sheet whereas previously it was treated as an off balance sheet item.
The new rules are expected to change the "look and feel" of balance sheets.
Changes are also in the pipeline for the accounting standards in the insurance industry.