Sberbank , Russia's biggest lender, on Monday reported an almost threefold year-on-year rise in net profit in January to 11.7 billion roubles ($387 million), but provisions continued to pressure its income.

The result was in line with Sberbank's earlier forecast that 2010 profit would exceed 100 billion roubles [ID:nGEE5B71B4].

State-controlled Sberbank increased net profit almost three times in comparison with 3.8 billion roubles for January 2009, when the Russian economy was suffering from its first contraction in a decade.

Sberbank channelled 20 billion roubles into provisions for bad loans in January versus 53.4 billion roubles for the same period of 2009.

Sberbank reported monthly results to Russian accounting standards, which analysts use as a guide to trends in its performance to International Accounting Standards.

Russia