Mungbean is a protein-rich, short duration grain legume that fits well into the major cereal cropping systems of South and Southeast Asia. Grain is consumed as dhal, in soup, as sprouts or processed into high value noodles; immature pods are consumed as vegetables. Mungbean can improve the sustainability of cropping systems and has great potential to generate income for farmers and to provide low cost, better quality protein and micronutrients in diets. The growing popularity of mungbean has led to an expansion of the global area cultivated to more than 6 million hectares. An international pedigree management system recently has been developed to help breeders select parents and avoid duplication. Broadening the genetic base of mungbean is a priority and breeding programs increasingly use crosses between unrelated parents and interspecific hybridization. This is important to tackle problems such as mungbean yellow mosaic disease, for which currently available sources of resistance are insufficient to cope with disease pressure in certain locations. Current marker systems for mungbean are insufficient to sustain molecular breeding because of the crop’s narrow genetic base, which results in reduced genetic diversity and a low polymorphism rate of markers. Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers are abundant in the genome and would provide an appropriate resource for molecular breeding. Restriction enzyme-related DNA (RAD) sequencing experiments are underway to generate a large number of SNP markers to characterize the world’s largest collection of mungbean housed by AVRDC – The World Vegetable Center. This will enable fine-mapping of simple and complex traits and assist in backcrossing and recurrent selection for faster breeding progress. Reviving the international mungbean screening network will help to expand sharing of improved lines between different countries. Access to good quality seed of improved varieties coupled with the adoption of improved agronomic practices are critical for improving productivity.