After nearly a year of studying the possibility of outsourcing some back-office jobs to a Canadian company, SunTrust Banks Inc. said Thursday it signed a 10-year deal that will reduce head count by 1,554 positions, or roughly 5 percent of its 32,323-member work force.

The deal with Symcor Inc., which is headquartered in the Toronto suburb of Mississauga, calls for it to handle check and payment processing as well as statement generation.

Starting Aug. 1, Symcor will take over those operations, and 1,500 of the affected employees will be transferred to its control.

The remaining 54 jobs will be eliminated, SunTrust spokesman Mike McCoy said. However, it's possible those losing their jobs will be offered jobs elsewhere within the financial institution.

The jobs affected are in Atlanta, Baltimore, Memphis, Miami, Orlando, Durham, N.C., and Richmond.

McCoy declined to give the specific number of jobs in each location that are transferring to Symcor, and the company did not characterize the nature of the 54 positions that will be eliminated.

The move is part of SunTrust's long-term strategy to cut costs to deploy money into growing the core banking business. That strategy, dubbed E2 for Excellence in Execution, is pegged to save SunTrust about $530 million by 2009. SunTrust said in May last year it was considering outsourcing those jobs.