From the origin of these two concepts, trust and fund are two independent but overlapping concepts. Trust is a legal arrangement, under which you (the client) hand over the ownership of the property to others (the trustee), and others manage the property and hand over the operating income to the person (the beneficiary) you designate. As for how the trustee operates, it depends on the law on which the trust is based and the agreement in the legal documents of the trust. A fund is an investment arrangement, that is to say, a group of people (either a minority or an unspecified public) put money together in a certain form, invest in a certain way and enjoy the benefits. There are many options for "a certain form" here, which may be a company, a partnership or a trust. From the above analysis, it can be seen that the intersection of trust and fund is that investors (trustors of trust) concentrate their funds on trust companies (trustees of trust) for investment operation through trust legal arrangements, and the investment income is distributed back to investors (beneficiaries of trust) in proportion. This trust arrangement for investment is usually called "unit trust".

China's trust legislation is relatively primary, mainly for unit trusts. When the market was hot a few years ago, domestic trust companies mainly paid attention to this piece. For the purpose of protecting investors, China's trust legislation sets a higher threshold for unit trust investors. For funds, the current domestic legal situation is that private equity funds can be corporate (but the actual company legislation needs to be updated) and partnership; At present, Public Offering of Fund is basically a trust/contract type, but there are also voices of introducing other organizational forms such as corporate type.