Investment Funds
A broad term that can encompass many different types of funds that may be of a generic grouping such as Insurance Funds, Mutual Funds, Tracker Funds and so on or they may be of a more specialist nature such as Pension Funds and Property Funds.
In an investment and financial planning context, funds are generally ‘collective investments'. That is to say that an individual's money is ‘pooled' with those of many other investors to invest across a wide range of shares or other investment media thus giving a spread of risk that would normally be unobtainable to one individual.
Examples of commonly used funds in the UK would be Unit Trusts; Open-Ended Investment Companies (OEICS); Investment Trusts, Life Funds and Pension Funds.