# SBP EasyData API vs PakDataHub

If you've searched for Pakistan economic data, you've probably met **EasyData**, the State Bank of Pakistan's open-data portal at easydata.sbp.org.pk. It's official, it's large, and it has an API. So why would you use anything else?

The short answer: **PakDataHub serves the same official SBP numbers.** It ingests every EasyData dataset, and it adds the rest of Pakistan's official data plus the parts developers need. You aren't choosing between official data and convenient data. PakDataHub is both.

## What EasyData is great at

- **Authority:** it's the SBP's own publication channel for its statistics.
- **Breadth within SBP:** exchange rates, money and banking, the balance of payments, external debt, public finance, the real sector and social indicators the SBP compiles.
- **Free and open:** you can browse it and download from it.

For a one-off download of a single SBP table, EasyData is a perfectly good choice.

## Where developers hit friction

- **One institution.** EasyData covers what the SBP publishes. It doesn't carry PBS's CPI by COICOP group, the weekly SPI prices of 30 essentials in 17 cities, Large-Scale Manufacturing, PTA telecom data, MUFAP mutual-fund NAVs, the PKRV yield curve or debt-security prices.
- **Codes, not names.** Series are identified by codes like `TS_GP_ER_FAERPKR_M.E00220`. PakDataHub calls the same series `fx.rate.avg.usd`, and keeps the SBP code in its `source_url` so you can trace it.
- **Unstated scale.** Many values are published without saying whether they're in thousands, millions or billions. PakDataHub checked each dataset against known totals and labels the unit (`usd_mn`, `pkr_bn`, ...).
- **Access limits.** API access requires signing in, and keys carry per-hour and per-day quotas and expire.

## Side by side

| | SBP EasyData | PakDataHub |
|---|---|---|
| Numbers | Official SBP figures | **The same official SBP figures**, plus PBS, PTA, MUFAP |
| Series | SBP datasets | 16,964 series across 4 publishers, plus 567 funds, debt securities and auctions |
| Ids | Source codes | Readable, stable ids, with the source code kept for traceability |
| Units | Often unstated | Labelled |
| Formats | Portal downloads, API | REST API, JSON or CSV, one key |
| Transforms | - | YoY, MoM, % change, moving average, rebasing, server-side |
| Revisions | Current values | [Revision vintages](https://pakdatahub.com/docs/api-vintages.md): data as it stood on any date |
| Update push | - | [Webhooks](https://pakdatahub.com/docs/api-webhooks.md) |
| Free access | Yes (sign-in for API) | Free tier to every dataset, no card |

## The same number, two ways

```bash
# PakDataHub: readable id, labelled unit, source traced
curl -H "X-API-Key: pk_live_xxx" \
  "https://api.pakdatahub.com/v1/series/fx.rate.avg.usd/latest"

curl "https://api.pakdatahub.com/v1/catalog/fx.rate.avg.usd"
# "source": "SBP", "source_url": ".../TS_GP_ER_FAERPKR_M.E00220/data"
```

The value you get is SBP's published monthly-average rate, identical to EasyData's.

## Which should you use?

- **One SBP table, once:** EasyData.
- **An app, model, dashboard or research pipeline, especially one that mixes SBP data with prices, CPI detail, telecom, funds or rates curves:** PakDataHub. It's the official data, unified, with a key in minutes.

Read [how PakDataHub sources and validates every number](https://pakdatahub.com/docs/sources-provenance.md), or [get a free key](https://pakdatahub.com/signup).

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Published 2026-09-25 - https://pakdatahub.com/blog/sbp-easydata-api-vs-pakdatahub