Large businesses in the UK improved payment performance by almost a day between Q1 and Q2 2011, according to Experian’s ‘Late Payment Index’.

The global information services company’s Index also revealed that small and medium-sized businesses saw their payment performance remain stable.

Large firms (with more than 500 employees) improved their performance from 33.98 days beyond terms (DBT) to 23.9 DBT. Medium-sized firms (101-500 employees) improved from 25.19 DBT to 24.81 DBT.

The gap of more than 11 days in payment performance among firms with more than 500 employees and those with 101-500 people that existed a year ago closed to just eight days in Q2.

Businesses with 1-2 and 3-5 employees improved slightly from 20.10 DBT to 19.85 DBT and 22.23 DBT to 22.07 DBT respectively. The number of days taken to pay their bills is higher than a year ago, however.