As mentioned, I was a MA in one of those banks mentioned. In my time, there are some MAs designated under the Ops program. Why? Because no MA wanted a career path through ops. Everyone wanted to go front office or at least middle office. These Ops MA are intended to rise up through the ranks to assume department head roles in back office.

Under such a program, the Ops MA indeed have a better career path. You must understand that from a selection point of view, the criteria for hiring that Ops MA is the same for the other MAs. Minimum 2nd upper honors, usually first class. 6-7 rounds of interviews. Meet CEO. That Ops MA also gets sent overseas for training just like the other MAs of the cohort. He/she also gets the rotation programs and he is regarded as a true program hire.

Now it works differently for every bank. Some bank have a Graduate hire program for Ops and it is different from their MA program. This is just a generic term and there is no really true program. It is just like any other graduate hire program. In this case you are no different from normal hires.

A simple test is to reflect on your interview process. If you got in easy, you are not under any program.