FRANKFURT, Oct 3 Deutsche Bank expects net profit to rise to more than $ 2 billion in the

FRANKFURT, Oct 3 (Reuters) Deutsche Bank expects net profit to rise to more than $2 billion in the third quarter despite more than $3 billion in write-downs in the wake of global credit market turmoil, it said on Wednesday.

Germany's biggest bank said it expected quarterly net profit of above 1.4 billion euros ($2 billion), although it would take charges of 700 million euros on its leveraged loan commitments and 1.5 billion euros on items such as structured credit products and mortgage-backed securities .

It had net profit of 1.25 billion euros in the third quarter of 2006.

Despite the write-downs, other areas of its corporate banking and securities had strong results, as did Deutsche's less volatile businesses such as retail banking and asset management, it said.

''We stay the course and remain committed to our publicly stated financial targets for 2008, including pretax profits of 8.4 billion euros, assuming normally functioning markets,'' Chief Executive Josef Ackermann said in a statement.

Pressure on Deutsche Bank to say more about write-downs it was facing mounted this week after Swiss bank UBS announced a shock third-quarter loss and Citigroup said profits were badly hit by the global credit crisis.

Deutsche Bank's credit default swaps tightened one basis point to 36 basis points on the news.

Its shares rose 2.5 percent to 95.85 euros by 0840 GMT, outpacing a 1 percent rise in European banking peers.

REUTERS SR RS1709