DUBAI, April 18 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's National Commercial Bank (NCB), the kingdom's largest lender, reported a 2.7 percent rise in first-quarter net profit on Tuesday.

The bank's net profit rose to 2.70 billion riyals ($720 million) in the three months to March 31, from 2.63 billion riyals in the same period of 2016, it said in a bourse statement.

SICO Bahrain had forecast NCB would make a quarterly profit of 2.39 billion riyals for the period.

($1 = 3.7502 riyals)

(Reporting By Tom Arnold; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier) ((Tom.Arnold@thomsonreuters.com; +97144536265; Reuters Messaging: tom.arnold.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))