The Financial Times reported that Citigroup and Santander have sold $1 billion of trade finance assets in a securitization designed to pave the way for more obscure assets to move from bank balance sheets to institutional investors.

The Times noted that new Basel III hurt the profitability of assets that banks would have typically held. At the same time, pension funds and other investors hunting for yield in a prolonged low interest rate environment are more amenable to investing in new asset classes.

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