Sorry to hear that news about your mum from.

Anyone can apply for POA themselves and then you just have to pay the government fee.

Banks and other organisations have got stricter about dealing with representatives of their customers. This has largely been driven by government insisting that they should do more to minimise fraud. I agree that too many organisations can 'hide' behind data protection legislation rather than try to help. Of course due nowadays to less and less face to face dealings with their customers, and more dealing with telephone centres, the problem has got worse. With further branch closures it is not going to improve.

I was going down the route of adding myself as a signatory to my mother's account, rather than applying for POA. That would have necessitated my mother going to the bank to sign the forms. She was unable to do that due to disability. If she had been able, no doubt the bank would have asked a lot of questions to make sure she was not being coerced to do so. I would have expected them to act that way.