At least three credit unions on
After issuing warning letters to CUs that filed late call reports, NCUA has stated that monetary penalties — as much as $1 million per day — could be levied on institutions that missed the April 25 filing deadline.
NCUA reported that 104 credit unions were late.
While most of the institutions contacted did not return calls — including the $120 million Animas CU in Farmington, N.M., the tardiest at 22 days late — the three that responded all said they filed on time only to later learn from NCUA they were late.
The credit unions all contend their efforts to upload their call reports encountered a problem, something the CUs said they were unaware of until the agency notified them.
"We submitted our report well before the deadline and then later got a call from our examiner asking us when we were going to submit our report," said Michael Pardon, CEO of the $147 million Sea Air FCU in Seal Beach, Calif., whose shop was listed as 13 days late on the document obtained by CU Journal. "I was very surprised to get that call. In the 30 years our current CFO has been here we have never filed late."
Pardon said that after Sea Air explained to the agency that the CU had uploaded its call report to NCUA's website well before the April 25 deadline, the regulator checked its Website database and saw the report listed as "pending. So NCUA asked us to resubmit, and we did that — but the report was there."
The credit union obtains excess share insurance coverage from American Share Insurance, Dublin, Ohio, and on April 10, the day it filed a call report with NCUA, Sea Air sent the same data to ASI, according to Pardon.
The list of late filers obtained by Credit Union Journal does not necessarily represent those that will pay civil money penalties. NCUA spokesperson John Fairbanks on Monday reminded that the agency "is working through its process and reviewing these [104] cases individually to determine the level of penalties to be assessed and whether there are extenuating circumstances that warrant forbearance."
Late filers with no legitimate reason to file late will receive a notification letter from the agency describing the penalties the agency is planning to assess, and will have 30 days to respond with any extenuating circumstances to avoid a fine. After that period a fine could be levied.
Arcadia City FCU, Arcadia, Calif., listed as 12 days late on the NCUA report, does not think it will be fined. A spokesperson for the $5.2 million institution said a "transmission issue" with uploading the report led to what NCUA perceived to be a late filing.
"We submitted the report but somehow it did not reach NCUA. Technically, we were early."
In May, Arcadia learned from the regulator that its report had failed to reach NCUA. "We expect this will be cleared up soon," the CU official stated.
Of the 104 credit unions that filed late, 85 had been on time the previous quarter.
Ninety-three of the late filers this time are credit unions with assets of less than $50 million: 64 have less than $10 million in assets, 29 between $10 to $50 million, 11 between $50 to $250 and none are above $250 million.
The $15 million Bashas' Associates FCU in Tempe, Ariz., is listed as 11 days late. But it, too, says it uploaded its report to the NCUA website on time.
"It was some sort of communication problem," said a CU spokesperson. "I know we sent the report in on time."
The 104 late filers represent an 80% drop from the 561 FCUs that submitted their fourth-quarter call reports late or made corrections after the Jan. 24 deadline.
Even with the big drop in first-quarter 2014 filings over year-end 2013,
"The goal is full compliance," Matz said in a statement. "More credit unions filed their call reports in a timely fashion, but 104 late filers is still far too many. It was particularly troubling that most of the credit unions that filed late for the first quarter had not done so the previous quarter, so they came in late even after NCUA brought this issue to their attention and announced plans for assessing penalties."
