In Europe, Basel III will apply to all credit institutions. Going back to the traffic analogy, all road users have to follow the highway code. The fact that another cornerstone of the reform agenda affects the large, systemically important financial institutions, or SIFIs, is therefore  1  European Commission, press release: Commission wants stronger and more responsible banks in Europe, 20 July 2011.
Devaluation denials may have been an obvious reason for this, and it is perhaps unsurprising that regimes such as the disastrous ERM, which create such pressures for disinformation, can be among the most ineffective. Lesson no. 3: central-banking-by-surprise makes candid communication extremely difficult.