The concept of credit originated in all periods of human society’s development and widely exists in every field of modern society and economy，which provides a guarantee for the smooth running of social and economic activities. The scope of “general credit” is a new institutional arrangement，which can be established and improved with the development of information productivity. In this paper，by defining and combing the connotations of ‘general credit’，‘credit economy’ and ‘credit management’，we believe that the development and progress of trust relationships under the conditions of the information economy are the basis for the establishment of a credit system. The credit institution and credit system constitute the core of a new type of system that is compatible with information productivity. In the future，the construction of a trust-based credit system will become an important direction for social and economic development.