Self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) may be the future for retirement savings in Australia, Jeremy Cooper said at the Self-Managed Super Funds Professionals' Association of Australia (SPAA) conference yesterday.

"Given our increased command of technology, our financial literacy and engagement, we may well be looking at a future where people want to take all the responsibility for their retirement investments without the involvement of institutions and intermediaries," Cooper said.

However, it was a scenario that was probably decades into the future, Cooper said.

He said plenty of Australians are still more interested in the paternalistic approach to superannuation, whereby someone else takes care of the decision-making.

In fact, one of the reasons the SMSF sector currently worked so well was that the "right people" were setting up SMSFs, Cooper said.

Cooper was not altogether confident it would continue to work so well if the size of the sector doubled, with 30 per cent of trustees being "the wrong sort of people".

"You might then end up with all sorts of regulatory burdens," he said.

Cooper sees the SMSF sector as "not broken", with any changes likely to be around the edges.

Despite the original horror stories about losses, compliance issues and "general mayhem", the data coming in from the statistical survey put together for the Cooper review had shown the sector was actually "in very good shape".

Cooper said the review panel wanted the sector to be a success and any proposed changes were only about making it better.

That might be achieved by simplifying the system for trustees by removing redundant paperwork and compliance requirements.

On the other hand, Cooper hinted that requirements for professionalism among service providers might need to be raised, and there was also the question of whether the sector would benefit from consolidation and scale in terms of economies and quality improvement.