I don't reply to many of the philosophical threads like this...but will throw my hat into the ring. :-)

The whole discussion of fees is relative. As a direct lender, I can tell you without a doubt that when I have a broker who is charging fees that are too high, I walk away from the deal since the client is paying too much for the funds and our risk profile goes through the roof so we will not fund the client (FYI: I am not a MCA lender and we do not front load the interest so we do not have the same risk tolerance). I've had brokers walk away because I cannot pay the fees they are accustomed to making I get it and I encourage them to take the client elsewhere, with my best wishes.

That stated, I recently had a client that had shoved his client into eight MCA positions for north of $1M in MCA loans. He was out shopping for a ninth position and not having any luck (imagine that!). The client had good financials and I saw him as a good consolidation prospect for us. When I told the broker that all I could pay him on the deal was two points he almost fainted and exclaimed that he could get 8 points elsewhere. So I asked him which he would prefer... 8 points on $50k or 2 points on $1M.

Result: Two weeks later I sent him a check for $20k for two points on $1M consolidation deal.

On the flip side, if I cannot fund a deal internally and it works to bring it to another lender, I will not do so unless I earn 3% (which I split with the referring party).

This is an awfully long way of saying the number of points one charges the client (or not) is dependent upon a number of variables. Most people here are brokers so I thought I would share a lender's perspective. Hope this helps.