The NCUA will begin to exercise its authority to impose civil money penalties against federally insured credit unions that miss call report filing deadlines, the letter said. However, the NCUA has moved back its deadlines to the fourth Friday of each month following the end of a quarter, which the regulator says will give credit unions more time to comply. Credit unions that miss the Jan. 24 deadline will be given warnings, but fines will be assessed if the April 25 deadline is missed.

According to the letter, Section 202 of the Federal Credit Union Act sets specific dollar ranges for civil money penalties as follows:

1. Up to a maximum of $2,000 per day may be assessed for each day a required report is minimally late or contains uncorrected false/misleading information if the late or false/misleading filing is unintentional and the credit union has reasonable procedures in place to avoid such errors.

2. Up to a maximum of $20,000 per day may be assessed for each day a required report is late or contains false/misleading information if the late or false/misleading filing is not covered by the unintentional safe harbor outlined in number one above.

3. Up to a maximum of $1 million (or 1% of total assets, whichever is less) per day may be assessed if a credit union knowingly or with reckless disregard for accuracy submits a false or misleading report and fails to correct it.

Matz also said the NCUA will release the names credit unions assessed with civil money penalties.

Fines will be sent to the U.S. Treasury, and won't be retained for NCUA use, she said.