The Federal Government should link any superannuation contribution increases to industry reform, which includes abolishing commissions and placing a cap on fees, Industry Super Network executive manager David Whiteley said.

"The debate around adequacy of retirement savings is one-dimensional and focuses only on contributions," Whiteley told the Melbourne Financial Services Symposium yesterday.

"What is being ignored are the other factors that have a significant impact on retirement savings such as fees, commissions and investment performance," he said.

Investment and Financial Services Association (IFSA) chief executive Richard Gilbert said such calls could distort market competitiveness, particularly if a cap was placed on fees.

"You only have to see the experience of capped fees in the UK market to understand that they don't work. We should be operating in a competitive market. Fees inevitably rise to their capped level," he said.

Gilbert said it was difficult to call for a ban on commissions when they are yet to be defined.

"I haven't seen any definition of commissions in corporations law or on the ASIC website. If we ban commissions we could be banning other things," Gilbert said.

But Whiteley said commissions fundamentally represented market failure.

"Industry superannuation funds have consistently outperformed other funds and yet because they don't pay commissions to advisers, advisers don't recommend them. That represents market failure," Whiteley said.

If financial planners are providing advice on larger account balances they should be allowed to charge a higher percentage of fees, according to Gilbert.

"Advisers have a greater responsibility when providing advice to people with more assets. They should be allowed to charge a higher fee for that responsibility," Gilbert said.