Financial technology (FinTech) is disruptive not only for banks and payment providers, but also for public authorities. Although the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has produced extensive research on FinTech since 2000, it took on an experimental new role in 2019 with the launch of the BIS Innovation Hub. This hub brings together multidisciplinary teams of economists, computer scientists and design thinkers in seven centres across the world to develop FinTech prototypes, products and public goods. This article contributes to debates about the legitimacy of international financial institutions and the global governance of FinTech by asking why the BIS has reimagined itself as an innovator despite its limited experience of innovation. Through a mixed methods study, which includes a thematic analysis of 50 hub projects and case studies of Projects Nexus, mBridge and Genesis 1.0, it finds that the BIS has become an innovator to bolster its legitimacy and reassert greater public control over money and payments systems in the era of FinTech disruption. Even though its projects have struggled to achieve scale, the BIS has avoided the risk of innovation theatre and put itself at the centre of debates about infrastructural power in an era of rapid technological change.