DHAKA, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- The World Bank has approved a 300 million U.S. dollars financing to a project to improve the transparency and efficiency of major cash transfer programs in Bangladesh.

This will benefit about 5 million of the country's poorest and most vulnerable people, said the lender in a statement received here Thursday.

It said the Cash Transfer Modernization Project will help the Department of Social Services under the Ministry of Social Welfare modernize some of the country's largest cash transfer programs targeted at the poor elderly persons, widows and people with disabilities.

The project aims to shift the operating processes of these programs from a manual, paper-based system to an automated, integrated, and electronically managed system. This will ensure greater effectiveness in the overall cash transfer service delivery process, it added.