Blackstone has agreed to buy $1.1bn (£867m) worth of credit card receivables from Barclays, as the British bank looks to move certain assets off its balance sheet.

The outstanding receivables are in relation to accounts in the US and the sale is the first in a series of actions to reduce Barclays’ risk-weighted assets and create additional lending capacity for Barclays Bank Delaware.

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The deal was done by Blackstone Credit & Insurance, which was formed in September, to combine the alternatives giant’s corporate credit, asset-based finance and insurance groups into a single unit.

Blackstone will make the investment on behalf of its insurance clients and Barclays Bank will invest into the deal alongside these accounts.

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“During our investor update, we said that we would leverage strategic partnerships to execute risk transfer agreements to reduce capital requirements. I am delighted to announce this first agreement in our US cards book,” commented Anna Cross, group finance director at Barclays.

Robert Horn, global head of infrastructure and asset based credit at Blackstone, added: “This collaboration demonstrates how we are supporting leading financial institutions with large-scale, long-term, efficient capital solutions in the asset based finance markets. Barclays has a premiere franchise in structured products and consumer banking and we look forward to working with them in the coming years to grow the partnership.”

Earlier last year, Blackstone president Jon Gray had said that he sees opportunities to partner with regional banks at scale. In an earnings call he added that Blackstone could help banks with some of their lending and said the group was in a number of discussions.

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