The Federal Government is pressing ahead with its plan to wind back Labor's financial advice laws aimed at protecting investors.

The Coalition has been under pressure over some of the controversial changes it flagged to the Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) reforms.

Labor introduced the FoFA reforms after a series of high-profile financial collapses rattled investor confidence in the sector.

The Coalition has sought to moderate them and, after a Senate inquiry largely backed the changes earlier this week, Finance Minister Mathias Cormann has told the ABC's AM program the Government will go ahead with most of them.

The Government will proceed with scrapping a legal obligation requiring financial advisers to take "any reasonable steps" in their clients' interests.

Senator Cormann says it is unnecessary as there are other safeguards in place, including six steps prescribed in the Corporations Act.

"That is adequate in order to ensure that financial advisers act in the best interests of their client," he said.

The proposed changes do not have the backing of Labor or super funds.

Industry Super chief executive David Whiteley is worried the changes will enable major collapses like Storm Financial and Timbercorp to happen again.

"The way to stop these scandals occurring is to ban all types of commissions, incentives and kickbacks to ensure you have an iron clad, watertight, best-interest test and to make sure that financial planners can't just deduct ongoing fees from people's super and investments," Mr Whiteley said.

Labor financial services spokesman Bernie Ripoll says scrapping the requirement is wrong.

"This is what the big banks and institutions want, not what consumers want, not what clients want," he said.

"They're scrapping the opt-in measures, which means that for many people they're going to continue to pay fees for services they don't get and for some people it'll mean they'll pay more fees without even knowing it.

"There'll be no disclosure, there's no best interest, there's no opt-in."

Commissions banned, incentive payments allowed

Senator Cormann says the ban on commissions for financial advisers giving personal advice will remain.

"We have always said it was not our intention to bring back conflicted remuneration," he told AM.

But financial advisers will be able to receive some incentive payments, provided they do not conflict with the advice they are giving investors.

Workers in the financial sector offering "general advice" will also face restrictions on payments they can receive.

"We are going to make very explicit in both our regulations and our legislation that those who receive payments as a result of providing general advice can not receive upfront or trailing commissions, which are the sorts of payments that people have historically been very concerned about," Senator Cormann said.

The Financial Services Council (FSC) has welcomed the Government's changes to allow incentive payments.

FSC chief executive John Brogden says commissions and incentives are not the same thing.

"The way the incentive payments are structured are very clear and they very clearly outline that a provider of advice generally - let's say a bank teller - cannot be paid directly for selling products," he said.

"They can be incentivised in other forms and that happens with branch tellers in the bank system right now."

The Government is mindful of the possibility the sector will find ways to work around these restrictions.

Senator Cormann says the Government will be able to respond quickly "to ensure that any remuneration arrangements that are introduced in the market place - if they conflict advice - can be prohibited".

The Government will make most of the changes through regulation, ahead of legislative changes in the months ahead.

This will mean the Coalition's rules can take effect from July 1 this year.

Senator Cormann says the changes will strike the right balance for the finance sector.

"Whenever you impose new regulation, you need to make sure that the additional cost is justified by an additional consumer protection," he said.

"Labor's changes in government went too far [and] imposed too many additional costs without a proportionate consumer protection benefit."