Vietnam’s FPT Corporation made its name as a distributor of mobile phones but it is now looking beyond its core communications technology business with plans to tap the nation’s fast-growing financial services sector by opening a commercial bank.

FPT’s business distributing mobile phones made by companies such as Nokia still accounts for most of its revenues. It has also branched out into software and internet services and is planning to build a $952m high-technology city in central Vietnam. But it latest ambitions are less clearly linked.