National University of Singapore's Master of Business Administration (MBA) programme has been ranked 22nd in the world for careers in the finance industry by Britain's Financial Times .

NUS is the only South-east Asian institution featured in the inaugural Top MBAs for Finance ranking published on Sunday, though Insead, a French business school with a campus in Singapore, ranked sixth.

Stanford University's Stanford Graduate School of Business topped the list, which was based on data from alumni working in finance three years after graduation.

NUS respondents said their salaries doubled to an annual US$132,000 (S$184,000) after completing their course. The university, in a press release yesterday, also said it ranked 11th for international mobility, which is measured based on alumni citizenship and the countries where they worked before their MBA, on graduation and three years after graduation.

It scored well in terms of international diversity and gender diversity, with international students making up 93 per cent of the class of 2013. Female students made up 43 per cent of the cohort.

Vice-president at OCBC Securities Kelvin Zhang, 33, did not expect to receive a pay increase when he switched careers. But he now draws 20 per cent to 30 per cent more pay than in his previous job as an information technology consultant.

"Although the information technology industry is doing well, I felt the finance industry really drives economic growth and I have always planned to enter it," he said.

When his previous company posted him to work in Singapore, he saw his chance to make the switch - by enrolling in NUS' MBA programme. He said the course prepared him for his new career in finance. "Practicum, like short-term projects with companies, gave me the experience I needed," he said.

In January, the FT Global MBA Ranking placed NUS' course in the 26th position in a list of 100 such programmes.