Harlow Payments did not appear overnight.
It came from years spent inside the machinery of payments. Years of building, scaling, fixing, and sometimes undoing mistakes.
Founded in 2024, Harlow Payments reflects the career arc of a leadership team that had already helped grow EVO Payments from the inside and lived through its $4 billion acquisition by Global Payments. By the time Harlow launched, its founders were not chasing novelty. They were chasing correctness.
“The goal wasn’t to start another processor,” the team says. “It was to build the one we wish existed when we were on the other side of the table.”
Early Career Lessons Inside Large Payments Companies
Before Harlow, the team spent decades in payments roles that exposed every pressure point in the industry. Rapid growth. High-volume onboarding. Sales urgency. Compliance complexity. Internal politics.
Those environments taught them what scale really costs.
“As companies grow, discipline is usually the first thing to slip,” they say. “Speed becomes the goal. Structure becomes optional.”
They saw how shortcuts created operational debt. How merchants became account numbers. How teams were pushed to move faster than systems could support.
Those lessons stayed with them.
Why Starting Over Mattered
Launching Harlow meant starting from zero. No inherited trust. No brand recognition. No safety net.
“In payments, trust is everything,” the team says. “And trust isn’t transferable.”
Rather than competing on price or volume, Harlow focused on fundamentals. Underwriting discipline. Clear onboarding. Human support. Calm decision-making.
“We didn’t try to be louder,” they say. “We tried to be steadier.”
The company was built in Melville, New York, with a national focus on small and mid-sized businesses. From day one, the intent was not rapid expansion, but sustainable operations.
A Defining Moment Early On
One early experience shaped Harlow’s direction more than any strategy document.
A merchant opportunity looked ideal. Strong volume. Attractive revenue. Tight timeline.
“We moved faster than we normally would,” the team admits.
Some guardrails were skipped. Deeper operational questions were rushed. Risk assumptions were made instead of tested.
Problems followed quickly. Support demands rose. Operational friction increased. Risk signals surfaced late.
“The failure wasn’t the merchant,” they say. “The failure was deviating from our own discipline.”
The lesson was clear.
“Speed without structure creates drag.”
Turning a Setback into a System
Instead of brushing it off, Harlow treated the moment as a reset.
Underwriting criteria were tightened.
Onboarding questions became deeper.
Go-live timelines slowed when alignment was unclear.
Risk and operations teams were empowered to say no.
“If it doesn’t feel right early,” they say, “it won’t feel better later.”
That mindset became part of how Harlow evaluates everything. Not just merchants, but partnerships, technology decisions, and internal projects.
Big Ideas Applied Quietly
Harlow’s leadership does not describe its work as visionary. They describe it as practical.
“APIs don’t fix broken operations,” they say. “Systems do.”
Their approach to embedded payments and AI is grounded in that belief. Technology is used to reduce friction, not to mask it. Build-versus-buy decisions are made with long-term stability in mind.
“Modern stacks still fail at scale if the foundation is weak,” they note.
Big ideas, in this case, are not flashy. They are disciplined.
How Harlow Defines Leadership in Payments
Leadership at Harlow is shaped by shared experience. Everyone on the team has lived through growth, chaos, and correction.
“We’ve seen this movie,” they say. “That gives us quiet confidence.”
Decisions are tracked simply. Annual goals are limited. Quarterly priorities are ruthless. Weekly commitments are reviewed openly.
“If everything is a priority, nothing is,” they say.
Pressure is shared. Problems are broken into small steps. Data is used to ground emotion.
“No lone-wolf heroics,” they add. “That’s how mistakes happen.”
Measuring Success Beyond Outcomes
Harlow does not measure success by volume alone.
Outcomes matter first.
Execution quality matters next.
Trust matters always.
Learning matters long-term.
“A win that creates three future problems isn’t really a win,” they say.
Peer trust is a core signal.
“If people would work with you again,” they explain, “that tells you something.”
Building Something That Lasts
Ask what motivates Harlow today, and the answer is consistent.
“We’re building the company we wish we’d had earlier in our careers.”
A place with clean operations. Real transparency. Respect for merchants and employees. No tolerance for noise.
They are not trying to win attention.
“We’re trying to build something durable,” they say. “Something calm. Something correct.”
In an industry driven by speed, Harlow Payments is proving that experience, applied carefully, can still bring big ideas to life — without breaking what matters most.
Peyman Khosravani is a seasoned expert in blockchain, digital transformation, and emerging technologies, with a strong focus on innovation in finance, business, and marketing. With a robust background in blockchain and decentralized finance (DeFi), Peyman has successfully guided global organizations in refining digital strategies and optimizing data-driven decision-making. His work emphasizes leveraging technology for societal impact, focusing on fairness, justice, and transparency. A passionate advocate for the transformative power of digital tools, Peyman’s expertise spans across helping startups and established businesses navigate digital landscapes, drive growth, and stay ahead of industry trends. His insights into analytics and communication empower companies to effectively connect with customers and harness data to fuel their success in an ever-evolving digital world.
