Russia's St Petersburg bank Q1 net down 62 pct

MOSCOW, June 11 (Reuters) - St Petersburg Bank (BSPB.MM), one of Russia's top 30 banks by assets, reported on Thursday a 62.4 percent fall in first-quarter net profit to 240.4 million roubles ($7.7 million), beating analysts' forecasts.

Analysts had on average expected the bank to show a net profit of 220 million roubles, according to a Reuters poll of six analysts, and the results to provide a rich illustration of the difficult environment in the Russian banking sector, which has been badly hit by rising bad loans.

Reserves against delinquent loans increased by 53 percent to 8.93 billion roubles as of March 31 from 5.84 billion at the end of 2008, the bank said in a statement.

The share of non-performing loans (NPLs) rose to 4.28 percent of the total loan portfolio from 0.73 percent as of the end of 2008, the bank said.

Chief Executive Konstantin Balandin said in April the bank would create up to 14 billion roubles of bad loan provisions [ID:nL91106]. (Reporting by Dmitry Sergeyev; Editing by David Holmes)