The current board of the Swiss Marketplace Lending Association consist of five members, representing various stakeholders of marketplace lending in Switzerland (platforms, investors, academic institutions). The board is elected annually at the general meeting of the members. The last election took place in April 2025.
ANDREA CANONICA
CXO Credit Exchange, SMLA President
Andrea Canonica, CXO of Credit Exchange AG, has played a central role in the development of Credit Exchange AG since its inception, starting with his leadership of the “CredEx” project at EY in 2018 and progressing to his current position as CXO of Credit Exchange AG, now a multi-billion-franc B2B mortgage exchange platform. Prior to this, he built extensive expertise in developing innovative platform-driven business models at UBS Investment Bank, Clariden Leu, Credit Suisse, and Ernst & Young. In addition, he serves as a lecturer at Centro Studi Villa Negroni.
MARKUS KUSTER
Head Off-Balance/Sheet Lending & Transaction at UBS
Markus Kuster, has been working for the universal bank for 25 years. With strong roots in the lending business, he and his team developed the mortgage platform for investment properties UBS Atrium (now UBS key4 mortgages) in 2016 and launched the mortgage platform for owner-occupied housing key4 by UBS (now UBS key4 mortgages) in 2020.
rafael Karamanian
Partner Lendity, Vice President SMLA
Rafael Karamanian is a founding partner at Lendity where he leads business development and strategic partnerships. Before Lendity, Rafael was the business developer at Credit Suisse responsible, among other things, to develop the lending activities. Before that, he held different positions at Credit Suisse in the investment banking and private banking divisions. Rafael holds a MBA degree from Babson College and HEC with concentration in entrepreneurship and finance.
Dr Simon Amrein
Head of MSc in Banking & Finance at the Institute, of Financial Services Zug IFZ, Hochschule Luzern – Wirtschaft, Board Member SMLA
Dr Simon Amrein is a lecturer and Co-Head of the MSc in Finance and Banking at the Institute of Financial Services Zug IFZ of the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. He has been working for the institute since 2009 and is the Co-Head of the MSc in Banking and Finance since 2020. He holds a PhD in History and Civilization, Financial History from the European University Institute EUI, Florence.
Dr Stefan Pomberger
Head cosmofunding, Board Member SMLA
Stefan Pomberger has been with ZKB since 2026 and is currently acting as the Head of cosmofunding. Before he was for more than 10 years with Vontobel, where he co-founded the platform cosmofunding. In the course of his career, Stefan spent two years in portfolio management, served in investment banking for almost a decade as a financial engineer, and developed products and programming, as well as front-office pricing and risk management engines as the Head of Quant Group Fixed Income. He helped with the LIBOR transition to SARON and its related products as part of the Swiss National Bank’s working group. Stefan holds doctoral, master and bachelor degrees in economics and technical mathematics from the Johannes Kepler University Linz in Austria.
