In a move to increase visibility into foreign exchange rates, Integral Development Corp. is announcing the launch today of TrueFX, a central portal that provides retail brokers with direct access to the interbank foreign exchange markets.

Built upon FXGrid, Integral's global inter-institutional connectivity and trading network, linking market-making banks to FX market participants, TrueFX is live and in production today, according to the Mountain View Calif.-based company's release. The new portal site supplies tick-by-tick historical data and real-time market data free of charge. Users have access to clean, aggregated, dealable bid-and-offer prices direct from leading market makers, the company said.

In a statement, Harpal Sandhu, Integral's CEO, calls "TrueFX a paradigm shifting event that will change the way foreign exchange markets are organized. "By providing clean, dealable prices supported by free, real-time and historical tick data, we believe the overall confidence in the market will increase, which will lead to much greater market participation," stated Sandhu.

According to Larry Tabb, founder and CEO, Tabb Group, who is quoted in the release, "The FX market has developed into a loosely integrated set of decentralized markets. For the FX market to reach its true potential, we will need to lower entry barriers, reduce cost, eliminate friction, increase transparency, and almost importantly increase the safety for retail traders," stated Tabb. He predicts, "This will open the FX market to a wider array of participants and expand the markets dramatically."

Among the brokers that are using Integral's setup today and supporting the TrueFX initiative are ODL Securities, PFGBest and Rosenthal Collins Group LLC. Features of TrueFX include facilitating a "No Dealing Desk" operation, back-to-back cover trading, integration with prime brokers, a netting facility for high-volume small-size tickets, and customer account segregation capabilities.

Open access to tick-by-tick-real-time rates are available via GUI (graphical user interface) and API (application interface) for all the major current pairs: USD/EUR, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, EUR/GBP, USD/CHF, EUR/CHF, USD/CAD, AUD/USD and GBP/JPY. Thirty-two currency pairs and other functionality including currency tools and Web widgets for sharing and customizing are available for download. Users also have access to free demo accounts for FX Power Trader, allowing them to view rates, practice trading and build customized trading strategies.

"Access to historical data will appeal to algorithmic trading venues as they are looking for ways to test and refine their trading strategies,"added Sandhu in the release. The company is working on making Historical tick-by-tick data available going back to early 2008, initially for download only, but the system will allow specific queries at a later time. "Once the query-based search is implemented, anyone will be able to spot check individual trades they executed, and compare the rate they got from their institution to that of the multi-source liquidity feed," stated Sandhu in the release.