Hena Mehta is the Co-Founder at Basis Foundation. Originally launched as BASIS in 2018, the company is now transitioning into a nonprofit dedicated to empowering women in India to own their financial decisions through financial education, trusted community, and access to the right products.
In this episode, we delve into women, money, and fintech in India, and how Basis Foundation is closing the gap with education-first, community-led solutions.
- Women approach finances with more risk awareness, long-term planning, and a preference for investing over trading.
- Builds an education-first fintech with jargon-free learning, knowledge boosters, and safe moderated communities.
- Focuses on women-only spaces, topic-based circles, and high-signal, low-noise conversations.
- Experiments with mutual funds, goal planning, advisory-led insurance, a women-first prepaid card, and gold-backed savings.
Hena shares her journey from Bangalore to Wall Street (Goldman Sachs), product roles at EasyTap and Square, an MBA at Wharton, and the leap into entrepreneurship to solve financial inclusion for urban women in India. We discuss mutual funds, SIPs, insurance, credit, UPI, rewards, community building, fundraising, and the path to sustainable impact with Basis Foundation.
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Episode Timestamps
- 00:00 Intro
- 00:22 Mission of Basis
- 07:09 Origin of Basis
- 12:07 How women approach finances
- 14:57 Community Building
- 19:49 On Basis
- 28:52 Customer Stories
- 31:42 Hena’s Childhood
- 36:49 Finance psychology – differences in USA vs India
- 39:00 What inspired Hena to return to India
- 41:02 Advice for young students
- 44:48 Work cultures in USA vs India
- 48:30 Being a working woman in India
- 54:00 Advice for women starting up
- 58:28 Fundraising
- 01:04:10 Insights
- 01:08:37 Fintech
- 01:14:57 Finance ecosystem in USA vs India
- 01:17:59 Resources
- 01:20:45 What’s next?
- 01:21:34 Best way to join Basis
About Hena Mehta
Hena is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Basis. Founded in 2019, Basis is equipping Indian women with the knowledge and tools they need to achieve financial independence and security.
Full Transcript
Hena Mehta:
Women tend to be more long-term planners. It’s unlikely you’ll find a woman doing a lot of trading; she’ll tend to be more of an investor.
Aditya Anand:
Thanks so much for doing this, Hena. It’s been a while since we caught up, and I’m excited to learn more about you and your journey.
Hena Mehta:
Delighted to be here. Thanks for having me, Aditya.
Aditya Anand:
Absolutely. I think we first connected back when we were working out of Axilor LaunchPad, and we were both early in our startup journeys. Over the years, whenever I thought of the phrase missionary founder, I thought of you. You’ve been carrying this torch and this mission for such a long time. Tell us about yourself and your mission.
Hena Mehta:
I grew up in Bangalore and did my undergrad in the United States in engineering. I started my career on Wall Street as a software engineer with Goldman Sachs and then transitioned into a product role within Goldman. I was there for half a decade. FOMO drove me back to Bangalore, so I moved back in 2014 without a real plan. I had been following the startup ecosystem as closely as I could from New York and realized it was exciting enough to quit a cushy job in one of the most exciting cities in the world and come back to Bangalore.
I joined Ezetap, a startup in mobile payments, as one of the first product hires. It was very different to join a 30-person startup after a 30,000-plus employee MNC in financial services. The payments space was a different side of finance, and there was a learning curve professionally, personally, and culturally. Over two years at Ezetap, I built software and hardware, launched one of Ezetap’s first international markets in the UAE, and then decided it was a good time to go to business school. I went back to the US for my MBA at Wharton and spent some time in the Bay Area with Square in San Francisco as a product manager on Square Capital, the lending arm of Square. That was my pre-entrepreneurial journey.
Basis started in 2018–2019. I had a hypothesis that financial services had largely failed to cater to the needs of women. Women make financial decisions differently from men, view risk differently, and have different goals for their money. Financial services defaulted to men because men historically owned wealth, but that is changing. These thoughts were triggered by my own pain points in my late twenties when I was looking at my business school bills and wondering how I would pay for them. Over two years it was about 200,000 USD, plus the opportunity cost of not earning. It’s a large financial goal that needs planning. I did not want a large student loan to dictate my career choices after business school because I planned to pursue entrepreneurship. I had worked and earned well for seven years, but I hadn’t invested or done real financial goal planning. It just never struck me. I did save a little, but I didn’t invest.
I ended up paying for business school by liquidating my 401(k), thanks to Goldman, took a small loan I knew I could repay regardless of my career path, and my family pitched in a little. Still, I wondered why I hadn’t planned better even though business school was a goal for years. I also felt men tend to think and talk about this more. That was the trigger. I started looking at the space and discovered that most consumer fintech apps, even new-age ones, had 90-plus percent male user bases. When I spoke to women in my network and communities in urban markets, nine out of ten were in the same boat as me: they had goals and aspirations, understood the importance of planning, but didn’t know where to go. They defaulted to fixed deposits and gold, and then stopped.
These were reasons I decided this mission needed to be addressed. From a business perspective, it’s a large, underserved, growing market. It will only get more relevant. There is money being left on the table by existing players. Could we design products, experiences, and content to get more women to invest, take on credit responsibly, buy adequate insurance, and participate across the spectrum? There are massive white spaces when it comes to women as adopters and customers of these services.
Aditya Anand:
When did you officially get started?
Hena Mehta:
I started looking at the space in 2018, right after my MBA. My cofounder, Deepika, joined about a year later. The first few months were about validating that there was something here and talking to as many potential customers as we could. I was the founder of Lean In Bangalore, a professional network for women affiliated with Sheryl Sandberg’s foundation in the US, and that group was a great set of women to test our initial ideas with. We launched the first version of our product in December 2019.
Because there was no playbook globally for a category like this, we had to learn as we built. The first version of our app focused on education: bite-sized flashcard-style learning modules for personal finance, which we called Knowledge Boosters. We extracted away complexity and designed for busy women juggling multiple things, giving them relevant information. One of my favorite early stories was a mother of a one-year-old who said she would log into the Basis app at 10 pm after her child was asleep and chores were done to learn.
We then experimented with communities. Our hypothesis was that money is inherently social, especially for women. Men often talk casually about the stock market, real estate, or crypto with friends and colleagues; those conversations rarely happen among women. We wanted to create a safe, comfortable space where women could learn and discuss without feeling judged. Initially we created an open community that anyone could join. Not surprisingly, men tended to take over the conversations and chats, while women consumed content more passively. We then pivoted to a closed, women-only community with approved members, and saw the floodgates open. Within three months we had about 5,000 women join organically. Conversations ranged from basic questions such as what a mutual fund is, to complex life events like navigating finances during a divorce or separation. That validated the need for such a space. Education and community were our starting points because knowledge and trust are the biggest hurdles before a woman makes her first investment, gets her first credit card, or buys health insurance. We later experimented with financial products as well.
Aditya Anand:
So the mission of Basis is essentially to empower women in India with financial knowledge?
Hena Mehta:
Yes. Financial knowledge, a space to discuss money, and eventually financial products you can adopt to manage your money effectively. It’s a learn, discuss, transact journey that continues through life. We were building a financial services destination hyperfocused on urban women in India.
Aditya Anand:
You’ve gone deep into how women approach finances. How do women approach finances differently compared to men?
Hena Mehta:
There are several patterns we’ve noticed. As a book recommendation, Warren Buffett Invests Like a Girl highlights Buffett’s traits that are considered feminine and make him a prolific investor.
First, women tend to be more long-term planners. It’s less likely you’ll find a woman actively trading; she is more often an investor. Second, women are often labeled risk averse, but we see them as risk aware. Women like to take risks but want to understand what they’re getting into before they leap. Third, women ask a lot of questions, in a very good way. If you’re putting your money somewhere, you should understand what’s going on. For example, in our community, when we discussed mutual funds, someone asked, what happens if the fund manager leaves? Where does my money go? It’s a great question that rarely comes up elsewhere. Lastly, women tend to think beyond themselves and consider family and peers more. When we experimented with health insurance, we saw women buying not just for themselves but also for parents, in-laws, and even asking to replicate policies for siblings. There’s a communal mindset of caring for others alongside oneself. These are broad generalizations, but they are consistent observations.
Aditya Anand:
Community and the social angle seem essential to enable more female participation in the financial ecosystem. How do you enable that community through Basis?
Hena Mehta:
Community building is harder than people think, and we learned as we went. Building the Lean In community was my first foray into starting and nurturing a community, and those learnings helped. Communities need to feel intimate so members feel a sense of belonging. A WhatsApp group with hundreds of people is not a community. Community has to be part of your strategy from the beginning; it can’t be bolted on later. It should be more about giving than taking. Many consumer companies use communities for product experiments, user interviews, or crowdsourcing features, which can be useful, but the core should be about adding value. That applies both to the people building the community and to members themselves.
Our first community was a heavily moderated Facebook group, given the topic was money. We maintained the safe space rigorously, kept it non-commercial, and ensured relevance. Money is highly contextual, so for a women-and-money community we needed relevant information, minimal jargon, and timely discussions. If something was happening in the market, we informed the community and facilitated discussion.
It was a mix of online and offline. Bonds deepen offline, though COVID forced us to pause offline plans. We built the community feature entirely in our app so we could control the experience. As the community scaled, we asked how to maintain intimacy. By the end of last year, Basis had 1.6 lakh women on the app; that’s a user base, not a single community. We created circles within the Basis community, by topics such as gold or crypto, and by identity such as moms or freelancers. That increased relevance but was harder to manage. We’re still learning and striving to create a community women feel comfortable in and return to whenever they have a question or concern about money.
Aditya Anand:
Let’s get into financial products and asset classes. As a woman joining the Basis network, step one is access to the community and a safe space to have open conversations about money with like-minded individuals. What is the next step? What products or solutions enable the journey into the financial ecosystem?
Hena Mehta:
We never forced anyone to do something they weren’t comfortable with; the intent has to be there, and we enable it. Early on, Basis was envisioned as an investing app for women focused on wealth and goal planning. We obtained our SEBI RIA license, partnered with five AMCs, and built our own asset allocation and fund selection algorithms for mutual funds, plus a goal-planning experience. We recommended funds and handled execution. Most of our community were beginners, starting small SIPs or hybrid funds. We found that the time from intent to action could be long, and it was a push-driven experience. It was also operationally heavy with significant customer support, and we were a team of five or six. We asked ourselves what we were really trying to solve and whether we were playing to our strengths.
We parked those learnings. One of the most popular goals was a career break, which is not commonly planned for but is more frequent among women. How much should I save and invest so I can take two years off and still be covered? That was an example of women-specific goal planning.
We then partnered with an insurance broker to explore the insurance space, which is highly untapped. Women tend to be underinsured in both health and life. We ran a pilot with advisory calls in conjunction with the broker and helped sell some policies. We learned that in order to scale, we would need to lean into an advisory model. As my cofounder Deepika often says, insurance in India is sold, not advised. We also learned about women’s specific health needs that existing plans didn’t cover well. As a personal anecdote, when I called an insurance adviser on another platform and asked about IVF coverage, he thought I meant IV drips. I had to explain IVF and why health insurance should consider it, though it still typically doesn’t. We realized we might need to cocreate or go upstream into manufacturing to build insurance plans designed specifically for women, rather than force-fit existing plans.
What ultimately clicked was our card. We announced a waitlist for the Power Card, India’s first card designed for women from the ground up. The original idea was a credit line over a prepaid instrument, with the tagline Give yourself some credit. The waitlist exploded, and we knew there was something there. It tapped into existing consumer behavior rather than requiring a behavior change. After regulatory changes, we pivoted to a prepaid model. It was a RuPay card with a women-centric rewards ecosystem we built in-house, partnering with about 30 women-run or women-focused brands across menstrual health, personal care, wellness, apparel, and more. The idea was to align incentives with what our audience cares about.
About 40 percent of our card users came from our community, validating the content-education-community-first model as a path to product adoption. For many users, this was their first card, not counting debit cards. The prepaid construct worked well. Users liked that it wasn’t a credit card, which they associated with overspending, and it wasn’t linked to their bank account like a debit card or UPI, so their entire balance wasn’t exposed while spending. A load-and-spend model helped with budgeting and controlling monthly expenses.
We planned to launch additional financial products on top of the card to capture users in a low-friction way: savings, then eventually lending and more. For savings, we launched a goldback feature. Instead of cashback, we invested rewards into digital gold so users could see a gold portfolio build up without extra effort. We leaned on behavioral insights to automate financial habits for women who have competing priorities.
The gaps exist across credit, insurance, investing, payments, and more.
Aditya Anand:
Big gaps are still remaining.
Hena Mehta:
Absolutely.
Aditya Anand:
Any customer stories or testimonials that stand out to you?
Hena Mehta:
There are a few. I mentioned the mother who learned about life insurance at night on Basis after her child was asleep. During COVID, a young woman shared that her father suffered a heart attack, which pushed her family to learn about wills and succession planning. She gathered a group within our community to discuss it, which shows the power of community.
Another woman learned what term insurance was on Basis and had a better conversation with her husband. Together they bought a plan that worked for them. A young woman said her father managed all her money and parked it in fixed deposits. After learning about equity mutual funds, she challenged him and said that given she was 22 or 23, equity made more sense for her risk profile. That only happened after she was educated.
On the card front, women loved that there were offers and rewards on things you do not usually find on other payment products. We often say personal finance is moving toward personalization; it is not one-size-fits-all. Many card products today are built for traveling men. We reimagined rewards, and the feedback was strong. People also loved goldback, creating their first portfolio beyond cash or bank deposits, which sparked more interest, questions, and confidence to explore other asset classes.
Aditya Anand:
I want to switch gears and talk about you. Tell us about your childhood and formative experiences that shaped your worldview and led you to start something like this.
Hena Mehta:
My worldview is still evolving. I had a fairly stable childhood in Bangalore. My dad worked in corporate at Hindustan Unilever for 31 years. It was a meritocratic journey for him. He didn’t come from wealth, went to IIM, and worked his way up. At home, education was everything, which drove me to focus on academics and get into a good college. We were fortunate that we could afford studying abroad.
Money was never a dinner-table conversation. Even today it’s a hard topic with my parents. I didn’t know our household income. It was best not talked about, which is typical in Indian families. In my late twenties and early thirties, I realized I should put my money to work. My dad encouraged me to invest when I started my first job, but I thought it wasn’t for me and feared losing money.
Failure was allowed at home. When I first took the SATs, I got a very low score. My parents didn’t say anything and let me handle it. I didn’t go to a class and thought I could do it on my own. That self-realization was more powerful than being told what to do. I took it again, did decently, and got into a good college. That approach to failure shaped me, and it’s essential in startups. You will fail multiple times, and the question is what you learn for next time.
I have an older sister who is a big influence. She’s super ambitious, and as the younger sibling I followed her path. She pursued undergrad abroad and paved the way for me. We’re Gujarati by origin, but I have never really lived in Gujarat, though we have a lot of family there. Money was never a topic at home, which I think also stems from a corporate versus business family background.
Aditya Anand:
You stayed in the United States for a few years. How is the attitude and psychology toward finances different in the US compared to India?
Hena Mehta:
Fundamentally, humans share common behaviors around wealth and health, which behavioral science studies. The US is a more developed and mature market. Capital markets have existed much longer there. I didn’t invest much then, but as a 21-year-old at Goldman, a colleague mentioned buying Facebook stock, and we had employee brokerage accounts, so I tried it. Credit is far more developed in the US. In college, I got a low-limit credit card and started building a credit score. In India, many people only encounter these concepts when they are working professionals.
Otherwise, the big challenges are similar: retirement planning, maintaining a long-term view, and not being swayed by volatility. I love behavioral economics and see a lot of commonalities globally.
Aditya Anand:
What inspired your shift from Wall Street to starting a startup in India?
Hena Mehta:
FOMO. It was unconventional when I did it. The Indian startup ecosystem was nascent. Flipkart was the poster child and up-and-coming. Friends who had moved back were doing exciting things. I was single and could be anywhere. It might have seemed irrational because Goldman had applied for my green card, and I was doing well, but I wanted to be part of something faster paced with high growth and lean teams. I could have done that in the US, but being on an H-1B visa adds hurdles to doing something entrepreneurial.
I sold my stuff in New York, booked a one-way ticket, paid for some extra baggage, and came back. It helped that I moved back home to Bangalore, which is also a startup hub. It was the best decision I’ve ever made.
Aditya Anand:
For an early-career professional or a young student in India deciding whether to build a career and life in India or the US, what would you advise?
Hena Mehta:
It’s very personal. I appreciated the early professional training I got in the US. India has evolved a lot, and opportunities exist here too, but that early professionalism in the US built strong foundations for me. You can’t compare the scale of the US economy with India, but look at growth curves. Find a place where you’ll be professionally challenged and not too comfortable. Avoid following the herd. The US job market is cyclical.
For education, if you can afford it and it fits, US education on average can be stronger than average Indian education. For careers, pick the place that will challenge you. For fresh graduates, getting foundations at a large, established company is invaluable. Startups can be glamorous and high learning, but they are also very hard and throw you into the deep end. My medium-risk view is to build a base first and then take bigger risks. The high-risk view is if you have a great idea, go start it, but know the odds.
Aditya Anand:
How would you compare work cultures and work ethic in the US and India?
Hena Mehta:
They’re quite different. In India, work and life blend more. In the US, it’s about work-life balance with clear separation. In the US, I would never call a colleague after hours unless it was critical. Here, it’s more acceptable, which can be both helpful and annoying.
The US has more systems and processes, being a mature market. India is more chaotic, and my India experience has been in startups. There’s method to the madness in the US, which can be less chaotic but sometimes boring. Being a woman at work in India also felt different to me. I moved back at 27. That led me to start the Lean In community to connect with other women professionals. In the US, I never felt I was treated as a woman in the workplace in the same way, though the context differs since I was at a large corporate there and in startups here.
One example from Ezetap: an acquiring bank partner was visiting the office. The men were asked to set up product demos, and the three women were asked to stand at the entrance with flowers. Things are changing, but experiences like that were common.
Aditya Anand:
Female labor force participation in India is low. What has to change at home or in the professional environment to encourage more participation?
Hena Mehta:
I’ve been thinking about this more since my motherhood journey began. Multiple things need to change. Beyond better support at home from spouses and extended family, and more mindful workplaces, I believe early childhood care needs disruption in India. My two-and-a-half-year-old daughter goes to a full-day preschool called Papagoya in Cambridge Layout and Frazer Town. When we looked for options, the full-day model barely existed. Many places offer only an hour or two in the morning, which doesn’t solve childcare for working parents.
Childcare needs to be reimagined. It also requires mindset shifts. People asked how we were okay with our toddler being away from home for seven hours. It works because the place is excellent, my daughter is engaged, and we are happy. I speak from a place of privilege, but childcare is what often bogs women down. COVID worsened female labor force participation; I can understand why it became overwhelming and women quit work. Women are time-poor. We need to lighten the workload through partners, support systems, and childcare institutions.
Women may think they can return to the workforce after a few years off, but it’s really tough. You may not have the same path or income. It’s not starting from scratch, but it’s a big career hit. If that wasn’t your goal, systemic change is needed. If I ever do another startup, it may be in early childcare so the burden doesn’t fall entirely on women, and their lives can continue alongside motherhood.
Aditya Anand:
Right. And add being a founder on top of that.
Hena Mehta:
Why give up on your dreams? At Basis, we often said there are four Ds that affect anyone’s financial situation, and they tend to affect women more: divorce, death of a spouse, death, and disaster such as COVID. My dad listened to me say this on a podcast and suggested a fifth D: dreams. You may want to start a business, continue working, or pursue something meaningful. Parenthood should not be the reason you give up on it. It’s a choice, and many are happy with choosing differently, but if you want to pursue something, the system should help, and that space needs disruption.
Aditya Anand:
I dislike the term female founder. Why isn’t it just founder? For a young woman in India looking to start a startup, what would you advise? What to watch out for, and how to approach it?
Hena Mehta:
I’ve gone back and forth on labels such as female founder or women in fintech. They exist for a reason, often to drive equity. Do I like being called a woman founder? No. I’m a founder doing hopefully good work. I’m on a panel at a fintech conference titled Women in Fintech. I said yes because these discussions are needed, but success is when they no longer need to exist. At Goldman, we had an internal Women in Tech network, and the founder said success would be when it didn’t need to exist.
To young women looking to start up: just do it. Personally, I didn’t face many of the horror stories you hear. It is hard. I had a baby while building a startup during the tail end of the pandemic. Everything is figureoutable. When I considered starting a family, I thought maybe I should wait until our Series A, then realized I controlled neither the timing of a Series A nor of having a baby. Life plays out how it does. Women figure things out.
There are many more role models now than when I started Basis. You can’t be what you can’t see. The more women you see, the more normal it becomes. Even with our name, we avoided Her or She in the brand. Labels can silo you, which goes against our purpose. I hope the labels fade as more women become founders and we are all simply founders.
Aditya Anand:
Speaking of horror stories, in a previous startup, my cofounder was a woman and CEO, and I was CTO. During a pitch, the VC kept asking questions to me, and she had to answer. It was a weird, clearly patriarchal behavior.
Hena Mehta:
Unfortunately, that doesn’t sound unusual. As an all-woman founding team, we were advised to get a male CTO or senior leader so people would take us more seriously, which is disheartening. I raised our last round when I was very pregnant. I was thankful it was over Zoom so no one could see me waist down. It was a real fear that a visibly pregnant founder pitching for funding would lead to questions about bandwidth and priorities. Thankfully, it never came up. These biases exist, but it’s changing. It’s now more common to see women having babies and building startups successfully.
Aditya Anand:
How was your fundraising journey for Basis? How did you find early believers?
Hena Mehta:
Very hard. Fundraising is hard in general; as a woman building for women, it adds another layer. We eventually found great early believers, both institutional funds and super angels, but it took eight or nine months instead of the three to four months you often hear about. You hear more nos than yeses; you only need one yes, but we probably had 70 to 80 conversations.
My background and network helped. A mentor once told me a brand-name business school helps a woman be taken more seriously. Still, we were asked questions like, if you’re building an investing app, do you realize you need a license? We already had a SEBI RIA license. Assumptions about our credibility were common. Most VCs didn’t have a thesis for a women-focused space, with no global playbook or success story to point to, which added skepticism. VCs are mandate-driven; if you don’t fit, they won’t invest even if they like what you’re building.
It required thick skin and generated self-doubt, but you come out stronger. If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger.
Aditya Anand:
Now you’re about six years into the journey. What are some things you know now about building a startup, finances, or women that you didn’t know starting out?
Hena Mehta:
It’s far less glamorous than it looks on LinkedIn. Behind the founder title is a lot of grunt work and rapid problem-solving. In hindsight, I wish we had experimented more before building the platform and fundraising. Women are underserved, but also a tough market to crack, especially in financial services where the mission involves behavior change. Products that require behavior change are harder to drive adoption for. Painkiller businesses reach PMF and scale faster than vitamin businesses. Personal finance is a need to have, but if consumers treat it as nice to have, you must innovate on experience, product design, and even business models.
On capital, if you can build without fundraising, consider it. Fundraising consumes mindshare and can make you optimize for the raise rather than for a sustainable business. Sometimes those align, sometimes there is tension. The uncertainty is real. Your day can swing from highs to lows within hours. You need thick skin and the ability to get up repeatedly.
Aditya Anand:
Let’s talk fintech. For someone starting now in fintech, what would you advise? What opportunities exist? What to watch out for? How to think about regulators?
Hena Mehta:
Fintech in India is evolving in a positive direction. If you’re building in fintech, deeply understand the why. In consumer fintech today, there is little that is truly disruptive in a constructive way. It’s easy to be swayed by broad statements like the credit market is huge and untapped. Know exactly what you’re changing and how it’s different from the status quo.
Have a view on regulation. Regulators tend to follow innovators, and that’s their job. Ask whether what you’re building aligns with the spirit of regulation and understand the risks. Also, fintech isn’t a side project. If you’re moving money, you need robust systems and thoughtful planning. You can do MVPs, but they must be fully baked for safety and compliance.
Opportunities abound in infrastructure, B2B, credit, and delivering great consumer experiences. I’m a big fan of embedded finance. Money is contextual. People don’t think about banking in isolation; it emerges in specific contexts and life events. I see more personal finance moving into embedded plays where finance becomes part of other day-to-day activities and triggers.
Aditya Anand:
Any examples? Is BNPL one?
Hena Mehta:
BNPL is one example: lending at the point of sale driving adoption. Education loans could be embedded into college application platforms; that’s how I took a small loan for business school. For investing, you can integrate with payroll to automate and supercharge SIPs so money flows into a fund for the future without manual steps. For less digital examples, divorce disproportionately affects women financially. Could divorce lawyers bundle financial advice, portfolio reviews, and liability assessments into their services? Banking will increasingly feed into the other things we do and the events we experience.
Aditya Anand:
Since you’ve spent time in US finance as well, what are the biggest differences between the US and India? For example, UPI has transformed P2P payments in India, but the US still leans on older methods.
Hena Mehta:
Fintech as a term took off in the US after 2008 when people lost faith in banks; fintechs were there to disrupt banks. In India, fintechs collaborate with and complement banks rather than replace them. Consumers’ trust remains with banks, so the role of fintech is to enhance infrastructure and experiences.
Another difference is how regulators, government initiatives, and industry collaborate in India. India Stack, UPI, and other initiatives are government-driven but built in collaboration with industry and regulators. There’s tension where needed for consumer protection, but overall agendas are aligned, which is powerful.
Aditya Anand:
What learning resources would you recommend to a mid-career woman, say late twenties, who wants to learn about investing?
Hena Mehta:
Start with the Basis app. We designed Knowledge Boosters to cover what you need to know in a succinct, non-overwhelming way. If you search randomly online, you can get bombarded and deterred. Find a resource that extracts complexity.
Second, talk about money with your friends. Bring up retirement, home-buying plans, and how you intend to finance them. Sharing experiences normalizes the topic and helps you learn. Even if you’re not the sole decision-maker at home, you can take these conversations back.
Third, just start. Create a small SIP, even 500 rupees. It builds confidence and curiosity over time. Also, get your own credit card rather than an add-on. Building your personal credit profile matters.
Aditya Anand:
What’s next for Basis?
Hena Mehta:
Given the fundraising landscape, we have been thinking about long-term plans. We are converting Basis into a foundation and will operate as a nonprofit going forward with the same mission: getting more women to own their financial decisions and increasing financial knowledge and awareness. Same focus and mission, different avatar. We’re setting up the foundation and will embark on a different kind of fundraising journey that gives us continuity on the mission.
Aditya Anand:
If someone wants to join Basis or learn more, what’s the best way to get in touch?
Hena Mehta:
You can find my cofounder, Deepika Jaikishan, or me on LinkedIn or Twitter. We’re active and respond to almost every query. The foundation has a small team in place, and we’ll look to bring on people passionate about the mission. We’ll see where this avatar of Basis takes us.
Aditya Anand:
Thanks so much for doing this. This has been a really interesting and insightful conversation for me and, I’m sure, for the audience as well. There’s a long road ahead, but we have to keep moving forward. Hopefully one day soon, this won’t be a topic we need to explicitly discuss; it will just be naturally there.
Hena Mehta:
Thank you so much for having me.