FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — With inflation subsiding, the European Central Bank cut its benchmark interest rate Thursday to prop up tepid growth with lower borrowing costs for companies and home buyers.

The bank’s rate-setting council lowered the deposit rate from 3.75% to 3.5% at a meeting at its skyscraper headquarters in Frankfurt.

It was the second rate cut as the bank starts to withdraw some of the swift rate increases it imposed to snuff out a burst of double-digit inflation that broke out after Russia cut off most natural gas supplies over its invasion of Ukraine.

Inflation is now down to 2.2%, close to the bank’s target of 2%, thanks in part to lower global prices, allowing the ECB to shift its focus to concerns about growth that has been held back by high rates.

The U.S. Federal Reserve is also expected to cut rates from a 23-year high at its meeting on Sept. 17-18.

But experts don’t expect a rapid series of rate cuts from either central bank to anywhere near the rock-bottom levels from before the 2020 outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. They say the ECB will tiptoe, rather than slash, and might cut rates only one more time this year. Inflation’s down with the help of lower oil prices.

The ECB said Thursday it would take future cuts meeting by meeting depending on incoming information about the economy and “is not pre-committing to a particular rate path.”

Policy makers must keep an eye on simmering inflation among services companies and rising wages as workers push to make up for purchasing power lost to the outburst of inflation that followed the end of the pandemic.

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By DAVID McHUGH AP Business Writer