Despite the NCUA's decision to enforce penalties against late call report filers, the agency said on Wednesday hundreds of credit unions have filed late for the fourth quarter of 2013.

However, the number of credit unions filing late dropped more than two-thirds from the 1,744 late filers at the end of 2012.

“A total of 561 federally insured credit unions filed their fourth-quarter Call Reports late or made corrections after the Jan. 24, 2014, deadline,” said NCUA Board Chairman Debbie Matz in a release. “This number is unnecessarily high and unacceptable.”

According to the NCUA, an average of 1,048 credit unions did not file on time for the first three quarters of 2013.

Matz sent a letter to credit unions in January announcing that the agency would impose civil money penalties on credit unions that file call reports late, starting with the first quarter of 2014.

“Penalties would be assessed per day according to ranges set out in the Federal Credit Union Act, but NCUA would 'consider mitigating factors,' such as a credit union's filing history, the gravity of the violation, and other circumstances, such as a natural disaster that prevented timely filing,” said an agency press release.

Credit unions that missed the Jan. 24, 2014 deadline were issued warnings; however, the NCUA will assess fines of up to $1 million per day if the April 25 deadline is missed.

“If there was a better way, I would like for somebody to tell me what it is, because we have been warning credit unions and discussing this issue with them for a very long time,” Matz said in a video interview with Credit Union Times in January. “I was really astounded to discover that there were over 1,700 credit unions that filed late last quarter, and many of them were chronic late filers. And in fact, the number had gone up significantly year over year.”