When BlackRock filed for a new global ETF based on the MSCI Frontier Emerging Markets Select Index last month, it raised my interest.

After all, despite the barrage of niche products being launched practically every week, the ETF market is still longing for a global, broad-based frontier markets fund.

But investors expecting a frontier fund loaded with companies from countries like Vietnam, Nigeria and Kazakhstan should know a few facts. For starters, the fund won’t be a pure frontier markets fund, and for that matter, BlackRock’s iShares doesn’t even make that claim in the paperwork it submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

According to the filing, the fund’s underlying MSCI index has exposure to 21 frontier markets and five “smaller” emerging markets. Since the fund will be cap weighted, it’s very likely to have significant weightings in the five emerging markets of Colombia, Egypt, Morocco, Philippines and Peru. In fact, the fund won’t even include Vietnam and Nigeria in the mix.

The hurdle that issuers face with frontier markets is that many are still simply un-investable, or have companies with such small market-caps that their presence is barely noticeable in cap-weighted funds. This may be the one of the reasons why BlackRock is going with a hybrid emerging-frontier fund rather than a pure frontier fund.

Still, it should have sufficient exposure to “larger” frontier markets such as Kuwait, Qatar and UAE. Remember, MSCI also has Qatar and UAE under review for reclassification to emerging. But because the new iShares fund is a hybrid version of emerging and frontier, a future MSCI reclassification to emerging status for those two countries might not even force a change in the composition of the fund.

While the new iShares fund won’t be a pure frontier fund, it should provide a uniquely different exposure to frontier markets than the Guggenheim Frontier Markets ETF (NYSEArca: FRN), which is only eligible to hold depositary receipts that trade in London or on a major U.S. exchange.

This severely limits FRN’s ability to gain exposure to companies from frontier markets that are only listed locally. And since its frontier claim is based on BNY Mellon’s classification framework, 71 percent of its weighting is in Chile, Colombia, Egypt and Peru -- countries that MSCI, FTSE, Dow Jones and S&P all have classified as emerging.

So what other frontier funds are in the pipeline worth discussing?

Van Eck Global has a global frontier ETF in registration that will track the Global Frontier Index.

But again, according to the filing, it looks to be another “smaller” emerging and frontier markets hybrid fund. It will include countries like Czech Republic, Egypt, Morocco and Poland—all classified as emerging by the major index providers. And since it’ll be cap weighted, Poland may get a heavy weighting.

Another fund in registration that is one to watch is the Global X FTSE Frontier Markets ETF.

This may end up being the first “pure” global frontier markets ETF whose frontier classification is based on a major index provider. The filing is still light on fund and index details, suggesting that launch may still be a ways out. But because it’s based on FTSE’s frontier index, it should include only countries that FTSE classifies as frontier.

It’ll now be a race to see who’ll launch first, Van Eck or BlackRock. While both funds in registration look to include a mix of “smaller” emerging countries, both should be unique and the first of their kind—global funds that can reach into local frontier markets for ordinary shares.

What all this means is that 2012 just might be the breakthrough year for global ETFs targeting the frontier landscape.