ATHENS (Reuters) - EFG Eurobank (EFGr.AT: Quote, Profile, Research), Greece's second-largest lender, expects first-quarter performance to top last year's results, its chief executive told the annual shareholders meeting on Tuesday.

"Overall financial results for this year's first quarter will be better than the respective three-month period in 2007," Nicholas Nanopoulos said.

"The increase in loan volumes and deposits is quite strong in Greece as well as in the countries of New Europe," he added.

Eurobank is also present in Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Serbia, Ukraine and Turkey. Like other Greek lenders, Eurobank has been expanding in the Balkan markets and Turkey to capture new areas of growth.

Nanopoulos said the bank is sticking to its 2008-10 business plan targets, despite a more challenging environment.

Eurobank is aiming to increase earnings to 1.03 billion euros this year and to 1.55 billion by 2010. Last year the bank lifted net profit 32 percent to 851 million euros on strong lending volumes at home and in southeast Europe.

"The increase in customer deposits is quite satisfactory with the loans-to-deposits ratio showing further improvement," Nanopoulos said.

(Reporting by Stelios Bouras; Writing by George Georgiopoulos; Editing by Erica Billingham)