Just been looking into some of Berkshire Hathaway's smaller holdings, and there's something worth paying attention to here. While everyone's focused on the mega positions like Apple and Coca-Cola, there are actually two payment industry titans that caught Warren Buffett's eye years ago and still deserve your consideration in 2026.

Visa and Mastercard are sitting at about 1.5% of Berkshire's portfolio combined — $2.7 billion and $2.2 billion respectively as of early February. Yeah, that's a tiny slice of the $324 billion portfolio, but here's the thing: these aren't flashy picks, they're the kind of boring, durable businesses that actually make sense for long-term investors.

The reason Buffett probably holds them comes down to something pretty straightforward — network effects. Billions of cards circulating globally, accepted at 150+ million merchant locations. Once you've got that kind of infrastructure locked in, it's basically impossible for competitors to replicate. Every new card and every new merchant location just makes the platform more valuable. That's the kind of moat that lets you sleep at night.

What's interesting is how consistently these companies have performed. Over the past decade, both Visa and Mastercard have delivered double-digit annual growth in revenue and earnings per share. Even with all the fintech disruption and stablecoin noise, they keep posting solid numbers. The payments space is still shifting toward cashless, and these two are positioned right in the middle of that trend.

Now, here's the reality check: don't expect them to be moonshots. They outperformed the S&P 500 over the past ten years, but they've actually lagged the benchmark in the last five. The valuations have come down a bit — Visa's trading around 30.9x earnings and Mastercard at 32.9x — but they're still not exactly bargain basement. And honestly, that's fine. These are the kinds of holdings that provide stability and steady growth rather than explosive returns.

The point isn't that Visa and Mastercard will make you rich quick. It's that they're the type of warren buffett investments that reduce your portfolio risk while you hunt for bigger opportunities elsewhere. They're defensive plays from someone who knows how to pick them. If you're building a balanced portfolio, these two deserve a closer look even if they won't steal the headlines.