A system for dispensing articles to a consumer. The system has a first station at which articles having an assigned cash value are dispensed. The first station a) has a first terminal at which a user identification related to an account can be input to process a user request for an article and b) is capable of causing articles to be dispensed to a user. The dispensing system further has a processing system that causes an article to be dispensed to a user at the first station in response to a user's inputting of a user's identification related to an account at the first terminal.