Pakistan's public API landscape: NADRA, FBR, SECP, PTA, NEPRA, Pakistan Post

Three ways to see it

1. 1

   NADRA. The most mature API in the country sits inside the National Database and Registration Authority. The Verisys service verifies a CNIC against name, parentage, and biometric. The Citizen Data Service is a richer feed for authorised banks. Access is not public. It is granted to regulated entities (banks, telcos, large corporates) through formal MOUs, paid per query, and bound by data protection clauses. The technical interface is REST with OAuth-style authentication. For a manager, the lesson is: NADRA is the canonical example of a Pakistani API that works at national scale, and it is also the canonical example of why an API can be powerful without being open.

2. 2

   FBR. The Federal Board of Revenue exposes several integration surfaces. The Online Verification Services at fbr.gov.pk let you verify an NTN, an active taxpayer status, an STRN, a sales tax return number. The Digital Invoicing API, REA-Q, is the live e-invoicing system: every Tier-1 retailer integrates and submits invoices in real time. The Withholding Statement Upload accepts bulk filings via a documented JSON schema. The Maloomat portal exposes a search API for the Active Taxpayer List. Most of this is keyed access for registered taxpayers and integrators. A few endpoints are public.

3. 3

   SECP. The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan runs eServices, the corporate registry portal. The public-facing search for company name, CUIN, status, and director list is web-based. There is no first-class REST API published for general developers, only an interactive portal. This is one of the largest gaps in Pakistan's public-API landscape. A serious open SECP API would unlock journalism, fintech, KYC, and academic research on corporate Pakistan overnight. For a policy or business audience, this is your prompt to write a memo.

The why-tree

Try this with Claude

AI-edge prompt to try with Claude or ChatGPT: 'I head policy at the Ministry of IT and Telecom. Draft a one-page memo to the federal cabinet arguing for a 2027 Open Government API Programme. Identify five priority APIs to publish, sequence them by impact and feasibility, and quote two precedents from comparable economies (India Stack, Estonia X-Road). Tone: sober, no marketing language. Output in English with Urdu summary at the top.' Then fact-check every claim.