PVARA silent on s.70 deadline, three days after it passed

Three days after Pakistan's virtual asset regulator's own deadline for exchanges to apply for a No-Objection Certificate came and went, PVARA's website shows no sign it happened — no update, no extension, no enforcement notice, on any of the three pages that would carry one.

Section 70 of the Virtual Assets Act, 2026 required "Transitional Persons" operating in Pakistan since 5 March 2026 or before to submit an NOC application by 5 September 2026 or stop operating; the Act's own statutory definition of who counts as a "Transitional Person" has not been sourced here, so the scope described is PVARA's own summary line, not the Act's text. PVARA's own licensing page still carries that line verbatim: "Transitional Persons — operating since March 5, 2026 or before, must submit an NOC application by September 5, 2026, or cease operations, as required under Section 70 of the Virtual Assets Act, 2026" (pvara.gov.pk/licensing). The line sits under the page's "NOC to Licence" track, one of the pathways PVARA lists on that page for existing operators. As of 8 September 2026, no update or extension has been added to that page.

The Pakistan angle

Anyone in Karachi or Lahore holding funds on an exchange that fell under this deadline has no way, from PVARA's own site, to tell whether that platform applied, was granted an NOC, or is now operating outside the rule it was told to follow. The Act ties continued operation to that filing. Without a published compliance list or enforcement notice, a Pakistani user checking whether their exchange is in good standing finds nothing to check against.

What's on the portal, and what isn't

PVARA's news page lists three items in total. The most recent is dated 12 December 2025 — "Pakistan Clears Global Crypto Exchanges Binance, HTX Under New Rules." The other two are older still: "ECC Approves Rs800m Grant for Virtual Asset Regulator PVARA," dated 25 September 2025, and "PVARA Launches Regulatory Framework for Digital Assets in Pakistan," dated September 2025. Nothing has been added since 12 December 2025, including anything about the 5 September 2026 deadline (pvara.gov.pk/news).

The regulator's advisories page carries one document, PVARA/ADV/001/2026, dated 26 April 2026 and concerning MoUs, pilots and stablecoin announcements — unrelated to Section 70 (pvara.gov.pk/advisories/virtual-asset-announcements-and-activities). That is the only advisory the site's own navigation links to. The page that would list every advisory on file, pvara.gov.pk/advisories, returned an error on direct fetch on 8 September 2026, and its true total count has not been established, so a second advisory sitting at a URL the site doesn't link to cannot be ruled out.

All three pages — news, licensing, and the single advisory — loaded normally on 8 September 2026. They are reachable; they simply carry nothing dated after the deadline.

What this does and doesn't show

None of this shows PVARA took no action. It shows PVARA's own portal carries no published record of one, as of 8 September 2026. Whether the regulator has issued NOCs, opened enforcement cases, or communicated with exchanges outside its website — through press statements, social media or direct notice — since 5 September 2026 has not been checked in this pack, and these three pages cannot answer it either way.

What happens next

No timetable has been published for what follows a missed or filed NOC application under Section 70. PVARA has not said whether a compliance list is coming, whether the deadline will be extended, or when the next update to its licensing or news pages should be expected.

Sources

1. pvara.gov.pk/licensing — PVARA, page as fetched 8 September 2026 — Section 70 NOC deadline text, verbatim.
2. pvara.gov.pk/news — PVARA, page as fetched 8 September 2026 — three listed items, most recent 12 December 2025.
3. pvara.gov.pk/advisories/virtual-asset-announcements-and-activities — PVARA, document dated 26 April 2026 (Ref. PVARA/ADV/001/2026) — sole linked advisory, unrelated to s.70.