The federal government has agreed to accommodate concessions on its Future of Financial Advice legislation, a move that is said was necessary to provide more breathing room for the proposal to win parliamentary approval.

However, Financial Services Minister Bill Shorten has maintained that the government was not backpedalling from its earlier stance on reform bills.

Shorten told The Australian that his initiative can be best describe as a 'grandfathering arrangement', which he hopes will win more support for the legislation.

"We are entirely open to the pragmatic negotiation of implementation details," Shorten told the newspaper on Monday.

He clarified too that accommodations being made were meant to drive home the message that the government is all ears on both consumer and industry sentiments "to get the best possible outcome."

"What we recognise is that we know the destination we want to arrive at," the minister said.

The Australian said that negotiations were being discussed on six possible amendments, chief of which is the reported scrapping of penalty for financial advisers that contracted commissions before July this year.

However, the paper reported, Shorten stood his ground on two contentious issues - the 'opt-in proposal' and the 'best interests duty', provisions of the legislation that have been vehemently opposed by industry lobbyists.

The two basically represent overhauls in the financial service system that the government said will act as safeguards for the best interests of clients.

Financial planners have also called on Shorten to clarify further the 'scalable advice' component of the proposed reforms, which apparently increases the liability of financial advisers.

To date, the industry has yet to be furnished information on most of the hotly-contested issues, the paper said.

Despite the concessions and the looming extensions of negotiations, Shorten is upbeat that eventually the financial services reforms will be rolled out by the government in due time.

"We will do it in a pragmatic fashion, and if it takes a little longer to get from A to B we will do so because we are determined to get to our destination," Shorten said.

The planned reforms, according to Industry Super Network chief executive David Whiteley, were necessary to correct flaws in the industry that resulted to clients paying for advices that they hardly needed.

Such abuses will hopefully be eliminated once the 'opt-in' provision is enforced, Whiteley added.

On his part, Independent MP Rob Oakeshott declared that the reforms in the industry must be pushed by the government at the soonest possible time, hoping too that the current talks on likely concessions will not eat up too much time.

When Shorten claimed he would be pragmatic about the discussions on the proposed reforms, "I hope that means the negotiations are shorter rather than longer," Oakeshott said.