Bert Ely has specialized in deposit insurance and banking structure issues since 1981. As the S&L situation worsened, he became in 1986 one of the first persons to publicly predict a taxpayer bailout of the FSLIC. In 1991, he was the first person to correctly predict the non-crisis in commercial banking; in 1992, he predicted the forthcoming taxpayer bailout of the Japanese banking system.

In recent years Bert has been sounding the alarm about the financial risks posed to taxpayers by the two government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He has co-authored two monographs on Fannie and Freddie issues that were published by the American Enterprise Institute, and has testified before Congress about the Fannie/Freddie problem.

On an ongoing basis, he monitors conditions in the banking and thrift industries, the growing politicization of the credit allocation process, and issues involving monetary policy and the payments system. He has helped to draft legislation to enact the cross-guarantee concept for privatizing banking regulation and its attendant deposit insurance and systemic risks. He also consults on current legislative and regulatory trends in Washington, deposit insurance issues, structural changes in the financial services industry, and the role that electronic technology has played in fostering "regulatory arbitrage" within the financial system.

He has testified before numerous congressional committees on banking issues, as well as on the Fannie/Freddie problem. He is often quoted by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, American Banker, and Business Week. He appears on television regularly and speaks frequently about deposit insurance and other banking issues, the Washington scene as it affects banking, monetary policy, and trends in financial services. He also serves as an expert witness in lawsuits involving deposit insurance and regulatory negligence issues and has published numerous articles and papers on a broad range of financial services topics.

Bert Ely was a financial consultant to a broad range of manufacturing, distribution, and service businesses from 1972 to the mid-1980s. As a specialist in corporate insolvency matters, he served as a Chapter 11 bankruptcy trustee and bankruptcy examiner. He also participated in numerous corporate turnarounds and loan restructurings. Thus, he brings to the deposit insurance issue a broad business background and hands-on experience with insolvency matters.

Prior to 1972, Bert Ely served as chief financial officer of a public company, as a management consultant with Touche, Ross & Co., and as an auditor with Ernst & Ernst. Bert Ely received his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1968 and his BBA in economics and accounting from Case Western Reserve University in 1964