Hena Mehta Founded Fin-tech Startup Basis To Financially Empower Women

In her late twenties, Hena Mehta decided to go abroad for a degree from a prestigious business school in the USA. It was then that she realised, that in spite of having worked for nearly 8 years in both the US and in India, there was a significant lack of financial planning in her life. She didn’t want to take a big loan, but also did not have money saved up for her education. Fast forward a couple of years, along with her childhood friend Dipika Jaikishan, she launched Basis, India’s first financial services destination solely for women.

“Based on my own pain point, I realised that this may be a common concern for many women. Like me, there’d be many women who are earning money and are independent but tend to fall short when it comes to investing money, protecting it and basically participating in the finance ecosystem,” said Mehta.

The Gender Divide

As highlighted in studies and articles, there is a large gender divide when it comes to financial planning and wealth management. Women are largely left out of conversations around money, leading to them often not managing their own money, in spite of having earned it. Basis started with an aim to educate and empower women to take charge of their finances.

Basis focuses on urban Indian women primarily. Mehta also believes that women often need financial assistance and services more than men.

“We live longer than men, on an average, so we need to plan for that. We tend to earn less than men, the gender wage gap is a popularly known fact. It also costs more to be a woman! Personal care, healthcare costs are much higher for women,” she elaborates. “We earn less, and need to pay more in most situations, so women arguably need financial services more than men.”

Even when it comes to investing and knowledge penetration, the numbers are significantly lower for women. “Women represent under a quarter of stock market investors. Under 15% of women are adequately insured. Around only 10% or 20% of women own credit cards. We looked at this as a massive opportunity,” said Mehta.

What Basis Does For Women

Right now, Basis is a mobile-first platform, offering a range of services. They started off with trying to bridge the knowledge and trust gap. Right now, they have the largest community of women in the country centred around the topic of money. They’ve touched almost 2L app instals. They have bite-sized jargon-free “knowledge boosters” that give you information on finance topics. “We started with these to empower women with the tools and knowledge they needed to start making financial decisions,” added Mehta. They also have personal checklists and guided tools that help one work towards particular goals.