Synovus provides commercial and retail banking, investment, and mortgage services through 249 branches and 335 ATMs in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Florida, and Tennessee.

[1] The bank opened in 1888 following an incident at a textile mill in which a worker's dress became entangled in machinery, spilling the money she had sewn into her hem onto the floor.

After she explained to a factory executive that she had felt this was the safest place to keep her savings, he offered instead to secure her money in the mill safe and pay her interest on her balance.

In 2009 the bank was listed as one of more than 150 United States lenders that owned nonperforming loans equal in value to five percent or more of their holdings, exceeding a threshold said to threaten its survival.

In January 2019, Synovus completed a $2.9 billion acquisition of FCB Financial Holdings, Inc., owner of Florida Community Bank.