Shanghai's civil affairs fund supervision and management platform will be applied across the city by the end of this year to ensure the accurate and transparent delivery and recording of the funds, authorities announced on Thursday.

The review and delivery of six types of social assistance funds, such as urban and countryside subsistence allowances, have been included in the platform, which has been in trial operation for one year, the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau said.

The city has about 3.3 million people covered in its social welfare system.

The city's civil affairs funds include subsidies for those in financial difficulty, the homeless, the disabled, orphans and the elderly.

Via the platform, subdistrict and town officials review and approve applications from the public on livelihood-related funds, and banks will then check the information of applicants and bank accounts.

District civil affairs authorities will double check the information and deliver funds to applicants' accounts through the platform.

The process is monitored by the city's civil affairs bureau.

The former practice was that subdistrict and town authorities made the review and delivered the funds.

"The new practice separates review and fund delivery, effectively preventing the hazards involved in fund distribution," said Lian Jinbo, director of the bureau's financing department.

"The whole process is managed in a closed loop and can be tracked, which stamps out falsification," Lian added.

The platform will alert authorities once abnormalities are spotted.

The platform is being trialed in 80 subdistricts and towns in seven districts.

So far, more than 600 million yuan (US$86.46 million) has been delivered via the platform, according to the bureau.