President Obama imposes the biggest package of U.S. economic sanctions yet on Russia. Targeted companies include the country's largest oil producer Rosneft, as well as others in energy, finance and defence. Simon Derrick, Chief Currency Strategist at BNY Mellon says the latest sanctions shouldn't have a long-term impact on the rouble and demand for the currency will remain high.

SHOWS: LONDON, ENGLAND, UK (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) (JULY 17. 2014)

1. BNY MELLON, CHIEF CURRENCY STRATEGIST, SIMON DERRICK, SAYING:

JOURNALIST ASKING SIMON DERRICK: 'I just want to start off with the Rouble because it's down 1% against the Dollar. How much more pain is there to come seeing the US and EU are ratcheting up the pressure?'

SIMON DERRICK: 'A little more. But I think you have to probably see this into context. Over the course of the last few months, the Rouble has been one of the top performing currencies and that's despite the previous sanctions and despite the ongoing troubles in the Ukraine. And that's for the very simple reason that it's a commodity-backed currency. Right now investors are looking for other central banks that are relatively hawkish or where there is some kind of hard asset backing. And there's relatively few of them out there. So the Rouble actually has benefited quite substantially. So even with the trouble that we have at the moment and yes it is going to have something of an impact, quite clearly the MICEX is struggling as well today, I think that investors are still going to be looking to buy on the debt simply because of that hard asset backing. It's one of the relative few currencies that has really got that.'

JOURNALIST: 'How about the Euro? We had some weak numbers from Germany this week. We had a guest on Tuesday saying he thinks Draghi's going to announce QE in October. What do you make of that?'

SIMON DERRICK: 'Well the great battle is still taking place within the ECB between the hardliners and the Bundesbank and basically everybody else. I do think that it's a pretty simple choice for them. They either have to allow the currencies to take the strain most like the UK did back 22 years ago, or they've got to- they're going to see local asset markets come under pressure as they have done particularly the local peripheral equity markets. Therefore I think that the likelihood is that they will make moves to allow the currency to weaken and that does mean QE. There will be a battle over full scale QE but I think they will get there because they don't really have a lot of other options. So October yes, that doesn't sound hugely wrong to me, certainly before the end of the year.'

JOURNALIST: 'That's great. And Euro/Sterling, I know the last few times we've had you here, you said that's your favorite cross for this year. Does that remain the same?'

SIMON DERRICK: 'Yes absolutely and again for exactly the same reasons. You have a central bank that relatively speaking is more hawkish and you have an ECB that has to take additional action. And for me, the Euro has to move substantially lower. And we still, relatively speaking, the long run for Euro/Sterling is still relatively elevated. So I do think we're going to continue to make that move down to the mid to low 0.70s over the course of the next 12 months.'