Grail Advisors has requested approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch two new ETFs, both of which are designed to press a more active mandate than is currently available in the ETF market.

In a filing dated Jan. 14, the San Francisco-based asset manager proposed the creation of the Grail American Beacon Large Cap Value ETF and the Grail American Beacon International Equity ETF. Neither would follow an index, and both portfolios would be subadvised by longtime mutual fund manager American Beacon.

Importantly, the new funds won’t carry any restrictions on trading. That would put it in the same ballpark as the PowerShares Active Mega Cap Fund (NYSE Arca: PMA). PMA theoretically can trade at any time. But PowerShares has said that it anticipates the fund executing trades only on a monthly basis over the longer term. The new Grail-sponsored ETFs will follow a more flexible mandate, although whether they will wind up trading as much as their mandates allow is still to be determined. The company says target ranges for turnover rates for each fund will be addressed in the future as specific managers are selected and investment strategies are formalized.

According to Grail executives, the funds will be entirely transparent, and their expense ratios will be competitive. While the large-cap value fund will be benchmarked to the Russell 1000 Value Index, the actively managed foreign stock ETF will seek to beat the MSCI EAFE Index.