MILAN, July 26 (Reuters) - Italian bank UniCredit on Wednesday raised its net profit and shareholder reward targets for the year after posting much stronger than expected quarterly results as higher rates lifted revenues.

UniCredit said it now expects a 2023 net profit of at least 7.25 billion euros ($8 billion), compared with more than 6.5 billion earlier. It plans to return at least 6.5 billion to investors through share buybacks and dividends, versus a previous goal of at least 5.75 billion.

Italy's only bank deemed of global systemic relevance by industry supervisors said net income for April-June came in at 2.3 billion euros, well above a 1.86-billion-euro average forecast in a bank-gathered analysts' consensus.

Revenues jumped by a quarter yearly, to 5.97 billion euros, topping analyst forecasts, boosted mainly by the gap between rates charged to lend and the still very low rates paid on deposits. ($1 = 0.9052 euros) (Reporting by Valentina Za, editing by Alvise Armellini)