MILAN, May 6 (Reuters) - Italy's third-largest bank Banco BPM on Thursday posted a higher-than-expected first-quarter net profit, helped by a rise in revenues and despite further writedowns made in the period to ease a planned sale of bad loans.

Net profit for the three months through March came at 100 million euros . That compares with an 85 million euro forecast in a Reuters' analyst pool.

Banco BPM had posted a 152 million euro net profit in the first quarter of 2020 and a 242 million euro net loss in the fourth quarter, both affected by one-offs.

The bank said it would sell bad loans worth 1.5 billion euros by June as part of an overall target for disposal of non-performing loans of 1.65 billion euros.

With the sale, Banco BPM aims to reduce its gross non-performing exposure (NPE) - ratio of bad loans as a proportion of total lending - to 6.3% from 7.5%.

The bank wrote down problem loans totalling 217.1 million euros in the quarter, up 1.8% on the same period of last year, including 73.9 million to ease a planned sale.

Banco BPM's revenues rose 28.6% on a yearly basis driven by fees, as commercial activity picked up and interest income.

($1 = 0.8300 euros) (Reporting by Andrea Mandalà;Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)