Sberbank net profit falls 90 pct in Jan-July

MOSCOW, August 24 (Reuters) - Russia's biggest lender Sberbank SBER03.MM posted a 6.8 billion rouble ($212.9 million) net profit at Russian accounting standards for January-July of 2009, a 90 percent decline from the same period of 2008, the bank reported on Monday.

Sberbank issues a monthly report on its results to Russian accounting standards and analysts use them as a guidepost to trends on the bank's performance to international accounting standards. Sberbank says it can remain profitable this year.

"The risk management let the bank keep the quality of its loan portfolio on a reasonable level. The share of overdue loans with the bank's total loan portfolio stays at 3.2 percent as of August 1," Sberbak said in a press release.

State-controlled Sberbank's first-quarter profit plunged 98 percent to international accounting standards as the bank booked losses on an expected wave of loan losses [ID:nLE295374]. ($1=31.94 Rouble) (Reporting by Dmitry Sergeev; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter)