Occupy Wall Street has been a hot topic of debate in the financial industry and at a much broader level: what does the movement stand for? Has it had an impact? Will it continue to grow? What is the solution? Not easy questions to answer and ones I won’t attempt to in this post…

… but it can’t be denied that the financial industry has a central role to play in reforming the industry.

We’ve discussed before that many of the sentiments coming out of Occupy Wall Street resonate with the team at Betterment. The idea that the odds are stacked against the average person on Wall Street is not new. In fact, it’s a big part of why Jon Stein founded Betterment – for accessible investing – well before the movement gained momentum.

There are other like-minded companies who share Betterment’s values of wanting a better Wall Street: who want a productive industry, a level-playing field, and transparency of all financial institutions. We’ve formed a collaborative called SlashDeclare, and we welcome anyone in the financial industry to join us and declare what they stand for.

Hear Jon Stein’s take on the initiative in the Radio America interview at the top of this post.