So far Balfour Beatty, VolkerWessels and Carillion have piloted or introduced payment schemes for subcontractors to speed up payments.

Other majors like Galliford Try, ISG, Wates and Willmott Dixon are also considering offering reverse factoring.

These contractors are looking to keep to traditional payment terms of up to 60 days while charging a fee for earlier payment.

Carillion remains the exception and sparked controversy when it introduced 120-day payment terms as part of its Early Payment Facility earlier this year.

If specialist contractors want to be paid earlier, they have to pay a charge to the bank which is set out on a sliding scale depending on how early they wish to be paid.

Kier’s payment facility offering will not affect present terms and will be offered only to firms who wish to take advantage of it.

Finance director Haydn Mursell said: “We have spoken to banks about setting up a facility and are in talks with some of our subcontractors about it.

“We are looking to implement it in a gentle way with subcontractors that want to do it rather than imposing in on our supply chain.

“Because we are a regional business with many smaller suppliers we don’t expect it to have a major impact and we are likely to provide a facility that is more in the single digit millions than anything any bigger.”

Last month Carillion revealed that more than 200 subcontractors and suppliers have signed up to its early payment facility.

The contractor said that more than £126m of supply chain payments have been made earlier as a result, and claimed 76% of invoices have been paid earlier than they would have been before to the introduction of the EPF.

The average supplier payment period under the arrangement has been reduced by 14 days.

The Carillion scheme has been greeted with mixed reaction among subcontractors and their trade bodies.

Those that have signed up argue certainty of payment was a big bonus that they were prepared to pay nominal sums to guarantee.

One told the Enquirer it’s not like factoring is anything new. In the past we had to pay to set it up. The Government’s supply chain finance scheme makes it cheaper for us if a main contractor offers it.

Gerry Marapao, Finance Director at AJ Morrisroe & Sons said: “Carillion’s Early Payment Facility has been of great benefit to us in terms of cashflow, whilst costs have been effectively zero as Carillion has reimbursed all bank charges that we have incurred.

“The finance charged at 1.65% above base for early payment is also very competitive”

But the National Specialist Contractors Council has warned that firms should bear in mind that they were still signing contracts with baseline 120-day payment terms.