DUBAI, United Arab Emirates —President Trump’s son, Eric Trump, is warning banks that if they do not change the way they operate they will become extinct.

“The modern financial system is broken; it’s slow, it’s expensive,” Trump, who is executive vice president of the Trump Organization, told CNBC during a discussion of the United Arab Emirates’ development as a cryptocurrency hub. “There’s nothing that can be done on blockchain that can’t be done better than the way that the current financial institutions are working. SWIFT is an absolute disaster.”

SWIFT is the global international messaging network for financial transactions.

‘Antiquated’ System

Trump told CNBC the traditional banking system is “antiquated.”

“Our banking system favors the ultra-wealthy,” Eric Trump told the news outlet. “And what actually got me into [cryptocurrency] is the fact I realized our banking system was weaponized against the vast majority of people in our country, either the people that don’t have the zeros on their balance sheet, or people who might have worn that red hat that said ‘Make America Great Again.’ And it forced me into the crypto world. And I’m telling you, if the banks don’t watch what’s coming, they’re going to be extinct in 10 years.”

Proponent of DeFi

Trump is a proponent of decentralized finance, or DeFi, platforms, which enable peer-to-peer transactions with competitive or zero transaction processing and account fees, which CNBC noted have typically been a source of revenue for traditional banks.

“You can open up a DeFi app right now, you can open up any cryptocurrency app, and you can send money, wallet to wallet, instantaneously, without the expense, without the variability” of banks,” Eric Trump said.