Synovus cutting 650 jobs; Capital One 220

COLUMBUS - Synovus Financial Corporation of Columbus plans to cut about 650 jobs over the next two years to save an estimated $50 million a year.

The regional banking company also announced that it is reducing its dividend this quarter from 17 cents per share to 6 cents.

The job cuts comprise about 9 percent of the 7,100 employees in the five-state area. More than half are expected through attrition, and some have occurred with a hiring freeze with the launching of the company's Project Optimus to look at operations.

Capital One said Wednesday it will close its GreenPoint Mortgage servicing center in Columbus, eliminating 220 jobs by the end of the year, including customer service, production support, collections and investor reporting.